The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas is often abbreviated to the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants, yet it would be a disservice to the Declaration to overlook the other groups it protects. This article will focus on one such group of people who also benefit from the rights contained in the UNDROP: rural workers.

Article 1 of UNDROP in its third paragraph defines and recognizes this particular group: “The present Declaration further applies to hired workers, including all migrant workers regardless of their migration status, and seasonal workers, on plantations, agricultural farms, forests and farms in aquaculture and in agro -industrial enterprises.”

This definition gives two criteria for benefiting from these rights: being a wage-earner and working in an economic activity linked to agriculture. We would stress the importance of including migrants and seasonal workers, two particularly vulnerable categories.

Agricultural workers, as defined by UNDROP, are a particularly broad and diverse group, and their inclusion could be questioned. But the Declaration is precisely intended to cover all vulnerable people who share the status of food producers. Yet there are few situations where these workers are not financially and legally precarious, often paid at the legal minimum with precarious contracts, when they do have a contract.

Restoring rights to these workers is necessary to ensure a just food system for all those who contribute to it, for how can it be transformed without first recognizing and protecting those who contribute most to it? UNDROP is never more interesting and powerful than when we understand that it embraces rurality and food production as a whole requiring specific attention and transformation – through human rights.

We propose here a reading of the Declaration to highlight the rights most relevant to workers, with a focus on articles 13 and 14, which are specifically addressed to workers.

Article 13: The right to work

The right to work enshrined in Article 13 of UNDROP can be broken down into two parts: the first concerns employment, the second the protection of workers. Article 13 opens with a definition of the right to work as the freedom to choose how to earn a living, i.e. one’s job. This freedom is linked to the right to be protected from forced labor and indecent working conditions.

“Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to work, which includes the right to choose freely the way they earn their living.” Art.13§1

Having a employment to live on

The freedom to choose agricultural employment as a means of earning a living is an embodiment of the Declaration’s fundamental aim: that people working to produce food for the people should be able to continue doing so. But for this to happen, there must be jobs that make it possible to earn a living, which is why paragraphs 3 and 4 of article 13 respectively oblige States to create an environment favorable to agricultural employment and to develop food systems that create jobs.

The environment referred to in paragraph 3 can be broadly understood as all the circumstances that make it possible to develop and maintain jobs in agricultural production. This can include the legal, economic, financial and technical environment, with each specific situation calling for a corresponding environment. This obligation can also be understood as removing obstacles and creating incentives for the creation of sufficiently remunerative rural jobs.

Paragraph 4, on the other hand, calls for a more comprehensive and in-depth approach, to the extent that it is only made compulsory for States “facing high levels of rural poverty and in the absence of employment opportunities in other sectors”. This condition should not be read as overly restrictive, especially as rural areas are among the poorest in most countries. Once this condition has been established, States are called upon to “establish and promote sustainable food systems that are sufficiently labour-intensive to contribute to the creation of decent employment”. Note the specifics given by this paragraph to define these food systems: sustainable and labor-intensive. The aim is to create jobs over the long term. This sustainability can also be understood in the sense of sustainable agriculture, i.e. agriculture that respects natural cycles, with low levels of mechanization and synthetic inputs, offset by higher levels of labor intensity, which may be close to the agroecological model advocated by La Via Campesina.

Protection from coercion

The second component of the right to work is the right to be protected from work that violates workers’ human rights.

Paragraph 2 begins by recalling the specific right of children to be protected from work that is harmful to them. The terms of article 32§1 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child are used here: “all work which is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development”. According to UNICEF, 112 million children work in the agricultural sector.

This protection then appears for adults in §5 of our article, which stipulates that States have the obligation to ensure the proper application of labor laws, inter alia through the action of a labor inspectorate. This specific reference to the labor inspection is directly inspired by ILO Convention no. 129. Employment in the agricultural and agri-food sector often relies on a precarious workforce, subject to employment and working conditions that are sometimes illegal, and only close monitoring by the State, and therefore investment in labor inspection institutions, can put a stop to such practices.

Finally, paragraph 6 deals with the most serious cases: “No one shall be required to perform forced, bonded or compulsory labor, or be at risk of becoming a victim of trafficking in persons, or be subjected to any other form of contemporary slavery”. As we have said, agriculture is an economic sector that often relies on a precarious and vulnerable workforce, which can therefore be exploited in the worst possible way. This right is based on Article 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The right to work as recognized in UNDROP can be a powerful lever for workers’ rights organizations. It is directly inspired by well-established international standards, and complements international law to protect a specifically vulnerable population. Agriculture is still a very large sector of wage employment, particularly in the agri-food industry, and Article 13 concerns millions of people whose rights must be protected as a matter of urgency. What’s more, the transformation of this sector towards a model that is sustainable and compatible with the environment, and thus away from industry, must be achieved with the workers, by recognizing their rights more and more, and not against them.

Article 14: The right to a safe and healthy working environment

Article 14 is an extension of the right to work, providing a framework for working conditions. Article 13 guarantees decent employment, freely chosen and permitting an adequate standard of living, while article 14 ensures that such employment does not endanger workers.

Article 14 is first and foremost a transposition for the agricultural sector of the right recognized in article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: “to the enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work which ensure, in particular: […] (b) Safe and healthy working conditions”. On the basis of this right, the article goes into detail on the protections that workers must enjoy, and the obligations incumbent on States in this respect. The details of Article 14 are largely inspired by ILO Convention 184 on safety and health in agriculture.

A right for all workers

It is important to stress that the first paragraph of the article reiterates who are the beneficiaries of its content: “Peasants and other people working in rural areas, irrespective of whether they
are temporary, seasonal or migrant worker”. As in Article 1 of the UNDROP, the status of the worker is no obstacle to the recognition and protection of these rights, and we also recall that paragraph 3 of Article 1 makes no distinction between migratory statuses. This is all the more important when we consider the prevalence of these “temporary, seasonal or migrant” workers, including undocumented workers, in the most dangerous jobs in agriculture.

Rights to protect health and safety at work

The first paragraph of article 14 sets out in detail “the right to work in conditions which safeguard their safety and health”, which implies the following rights:

• participation in the application and review of health and safety measures
• the choice of representatives specifically concerned with the subject
• prevention, reduction and control of risks
• access to protective equipment
• safety information and training

The paragraph concludes with the right to be free from violence and harassment, including sexual harassment, and the right to be free from reprisals in the event of reporting or refusing to work in proven dangerous conditions. It was particularly important to conclude this list with these two rights. Firstly, because violence prevents the use and protection of rights, especially reprisals. It is violence that allows the creation and perpetuation of risky and dangerous situations for workers.

The reference to sexual violence and harassment is also worth noting. Some agricultural sectors specifically employ women, for example in repetitive and delicate harvesting work. This work, by its very nature seasonal and therefore precarious, leads to greater vulnerability to violence, particularly sexual violence.

To respond to and implement these rights, Article 14 sets out a number of obligations for States in paragraph 3. The paragraph begins by laying down a general obligation for States to take appropriate measures to guarantee health and safety. It then lays down specific means of ensuring this: principally the designation of competent authorities, not only for implementation, but also for monitoring and sanctioning failure to apply the framework for worker protection.

Protection specific to agrochemicals

Among the risks incurred by agricultural workers, Article 14 focuses particularly on those linked to the chemicals used in agriculture.

First of all, workers have the right, set out in paragraph 2, “not to use or be exposed to dangerous substances or toxic chemicals, in particular agrochemicals or agricultural or industrial pollutants”. This right is also linked to the first paragraph, which gives workers the right to refuse dangerous working conditions, and to denounce the use of proven dangerous products.

This right carries with it obligations for States. These are set out in paragraph 4 of the article. The first obligation is to prevent risks, and this prevention can go as far as restricting or banning certain products. The other obligations cover the entire life cycle of products, from manufacture to use and disposal. The last obligation no longer concerns farmers or workers, but the general public. States have an obligation to educate and raise awareness of the risks posed by these products to health and the environment, and of alternative solutions.

With this focus on chemical products, we are once again defending a peasant agriculture based on practices that are respectful of the environment and people.

Conclusion

Other rights can be read from the specific point of view of workers. In a linear reading of the Declaration, we find first civil and political rights, then economic and social rights.

Among the former, we can focus on paragraph 2.i of article 4, on the rights of rural women, which deals with the issue of work: “To decent employment, equal remuneration and social protection benefits, and to have access to income-generating activities”. Women’s access to work and to decent pay equal to that of men remains a battle far from over.

Then we must mention Articles 8 on freedom of thought, opinion and expression, and 9 on freedom of association. These rights relate directly to trade union freedoms, which are particularly important for the organization of the defense of workers’ rights.

As far as economic and social rights are concerned, many are of great importance to workers. For example, the right to social security (Article 22), which includes coverage for work-related accidents, loss of employment and retirement. But also the right to health (art. 23), which is intrinsically linked to the right to a healthy working environment and to care for work-related health.

The right to food (art. 15), housing (art. 24) and water and sanitation (art. 21), which are rights that meet basic needs, are often flouted by employers of agricultural workers. Agricultural workers, especially seasonal ones, are sometimes entirely dependent on their employers to meet these needs, and therefore to ensure that these rights are respected. The articles devoted to them in UNDROP take up rights already recognized internationally and adapt them to the specific conditions of rural workers.

All the articles in the Declaration refer to peasants and people working in rural areas, so all these rights are always those of workers. The model of the peasant working his land alone, or with his family, is not the only one prevalent in the countryside, and the aim of the Declaration is not to make it hegemonic. Agricultural workers are present throughout the food production chain, and are an indispensable link in its transformation. Guaranteeing them increased rights through UNDROP means enabling a transformation from within, towards new forms of work in the service of feeding the population and dignity at work.

La entrada The UNDROP from the workers perspective se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

When the UNDROP was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in December 2018, Canada abstained. Despite that, Canada is one of the first places where UNDROP has been explicitly cited by a provincial court in a case related to migrant workers’ rights. Jessie MacInnis explains for us the dynamics at play in Canada on Peasants’ Rights and the importance of case law.

First, to give us some context, could you describe us the general landscape of agriculture in Canada?

Agricultural policies have increasingly tied agriculture to a corporate system in Canada. Recent examples relate to the reduction of government oversight of seeds and gene-edited plants. The Canadian government has put its faith in agribusiness and biotech corporations instead of science and public interest. It’s very scary for farmers, especially for organic farmers, such as myself, who may suffer financial, health, and ecological implications from increasing corporate capture of seeds and the gutting of publicly-funded seed research and development.

COVID-19 has shown the cracks and deep rooted inequities that keep land inaccessible, rural communities gutted of resources, and farmers indebted and dependent on the companies selling inputs and chemicals. It also showed the dependence on a constant supply of migrant workers who suffer from human rights abuses. Yet it has been a time of enormous profit increases for corporations in the sector. On top of that we have the climate crisis and the income crisis, with income that have been stagnant for years and many farmers relying on off-farm work to make ends meet. Agriculture policies are beginning to wake up to the realities of the climate crisis, with more funding available for on-farm climate adaptation, but the income crisis is still prevalent for small-scale and family farms, which are the backbone of the food system.

Ƒinally, If we talk about agriculture in Canada, we have to acknowledge that it is built on settler colonization and stolen land. The National Farmers Union (NFU) is engaging in conversations between farmers and Indigenous Peoples, conversations about land equity, land back, and food sovereignty, but it’s just the beginning. Our agriculture is built on colonial violence that still hasn’t been reconciled. Farmers have a critical role to play in both acknowledging our relationship to the land and finding pathways forward towards living in right relations with Indigenous Peoples.

In this agricultural landscape we have a plurality of perspectives with regards to how agriculture policies should be developed, and whose goals it seeks to achieve. Some of the bigger agriculture organizations definitively may have historically had more sway with policymakers, but the NFU and other food sovereignty activists are gaining ground, especially at local and regional levels.

In 2020, Ontario Superior Court of Justice released a decision based on UNDROP in defense of a group of migrant farm workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us more on this decision?

This case shows the legal potential of the UNDROP, I think legal action is one pathway for countries who have not approved the Declaration at the United Nations to incorporate its articles and set legal precedents.

In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights used Article 23 of UNDROP in a provincial court in defense of a group of migrant workers facing dangerous, overcrowded living conditions.

To give some context, Canadian farms employ nearly half a million agricultural workers through a federal program. This program has been riddled with accusations of human rights violations over the years: poor living conditions, low wages and no pathways to permanent residency. At the same time, Canada is dependent on their labour to ensure the food supply.

In March 2020, just after the state of emergency was announced, the federal government mandated a 14-days isolation period for all temporary foreign workers entering Canada, at the same time ensuring workers subjected to isolation in groups would have at least 2 meters per person at all time and limiting the numbers of workers living together in a lodging.

When this policy was mandated, a major industrial farm in Ontario (central Canada) that employs migrant workers, submitted two inadequate self-isolation plans before requesting a hearing regarding the public health order limiting the numbers of farm workers in one lodging. At the hearing the farm argued that the requirement of three farm workers per lodging was arbitrary and failed to recognize the significance of migrant farm workers to Canada food supply. They argued they had not been able to bring in as many migrants as they would normally, and this jeopardized their food production.

The Superior Court of Justice of Ontario responded by saying that: “decreasing health inequities as required under the guidelines requires that the number of workers that are allowed to isolate together is such that the risk posed to their health is comparable to the rest of the population when they’re quarantined. Allowing larger numbers to isolate together exposes migrants farm workers to a level of risk not tolerated for others in the community, thereby increasing vulnerability of an already vulnerable group.”

In reaching this outcome, the Court cited the UNDROP for the first time in Canada. The way they cited it is important: “…furthermore the UNDROP is part of the body of HR laws and norms to which Canadian adjudicators may look in interpreting statutory or common-law obligations and in reviewing administrative decisions.”. They cited article 23.1, which states: “Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”.

So the context and the outcome of the case is demonstrative of the applicability of the Declaration in the Canadian context. Promoting this case is something we need to keep doing. It’s strategic to expand the network of human rights lawyers that are aware of UNDROP and to give them this as an example.

Now that you have this case law, what are the next steps?

I think the first consideration is to choose the right level on which to work. The way I see it, there must be critical analyses and linkages made at the local level first, and there is a lot of value in building capacities locally and then scaling out and up. Although UNDROP is a tool that we can use at any scale, sometimes it might be more applicable at local level . In Canada, manyagricultural policies are made at the provincial level (with the exception of trade and seed policy, for example). At this level, there is typically a better understanding among farmers of what their collective needs are, and also a greater capacity to advocate for tangible policy change. I think there is potential in applying very specific rights to very specific situations, rather than attempting to implement the UNDROP at a national level. We can make the connection here at home regarding how to apply to our context. The missing link here is the political education: we need engaging and relevant popular education tools to demonstrate the connectivity between this somewhat esoteric UN Declaration and the realities of farmers in rural Canada. I think the NFU is doing a good job of connecting our current agriculture policy work to the UNDROP, which is a critical first step in simply making people aware of its existence.

At the national level, this case law on migrant workers rights could hold a lot of weight in terms of precedent, but we face hurdles as at the local level in terms of scaling out the basic understanding of UNDROP beyond NFU members and human rights lawyers. In Canada, I would argue that knowledge of human rights – especially related to agriculture – is low. The more that we educate the public about the need to shift agriculture policy in a rights-based direction, the more likely we are to see the UNDROP being utilized more in legal and policy contexts alike.

What would you say could be the other rights to focus on for the implementation of UNDROP in Canada?

The land question requires serious consideration in Canada. The UNDROP offers text on the right to land that is a radical departure from the way land tenure and policy is set up here. However, we cannot overstep or contradict the work being done by advocates of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). There would need to be serious coordination to make sure both UNDRIP and UNDROP land rights are implemented complementarily.

We are hearing a lot from young people in the NFU about land. When they talk about what their needs are in terms of advocacy technical support, accessing farm land and capital are the most fundamental issues they identify as barriers in terms of getting into agriculture. Also, there is the succession crisis: we have a rapidly aging population of farmers, the average age is 55 now. A problem, among many, is that there hasn’t been any sort of pension support for farmers in the past, so upon retirement many farmers sell their farmland to the highest bidder in order to have a dignified retirement. That has put up huge roadblocks for young people who don’t have a lot of capital, especially those who are not from farm families. We also need to consider who is going to take over the grains farms and commodity farms when those farmers retire. Young, first generation farmers are starting new farms, but the majority are small-scale due to the capital requirements of larger operations. I’m afraid of the corporate consolidation that will continue to unfold if this and the next generation cannot afford to operate larger farms.

So, considering the multiple crisis, we need to be talking about tangible alternative land tenure solutions that take in consideration the needs of Indigenous communities and farmers of all ages around us. We are thinking of creative ways to access land, whether in co-op or land trust models, but we also need to advocate for government supports that reinforce our efforts. There are a lot of questions and few answers about land succession and that is something that as Youth President of the NFU I want to work on. Using the UNDROP as an aspirational framework for land rights in this country could be a unifying concept if we can scale out the understanding of its relevance to the Canadian context.

Another area that is particularly relevant to the Canadian context is seeds. The NFU has a long history of working towards seeds sovereignty. Using article 19 is very timely, as seed sovereignty is under more threat now than it has ever has been. The federal government has essentially given the biotech company free reign in the food system. This time around, they have done so by removing safety checks on corporate science and denying transparency to the public. The Agriculture Minister announced that Canada will exempt gene-edited plants from regulation and mandatory public notification unless they contain foreign DNA or if they are herbicide tolerant. For all other changes in a gene-edited plant, companies will decide whether their product should be assessed by a federal body. So, biotech companies will have final say over whether their products may cause environmental harm, and the public won’t know about the quality of the assessments they choose to do or if they do them at all. Scary stuff.

We used to have really robust public seed breeding, but it was dismantled over the last two decade. We have seen seeds increasingly come into corporate control, but we know that a good public system is possible. This is what the NFU is pushing for. The more deeply ingrained the corporate seeds agenda gets into our agricultural policies, the more challenging it’s going to be to dig ourselves out of this mess. Now we even have conglomerate for four seed corporations seeds con that changed their name to Seeds Canada, which sounds like a government body. These changes are happening quickly, it’s frightening. The public should be up in arms about the corporate consolidation of seeds and using UNDROP as a foundation is a good place to start pushing for change.

Seeds are one of the most precious and deeply cultural resources that we have. Article 19 really reinforces the Convention on Biodiversity and the Treaty on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Canada has signed both. It has also signed and ratified UNDRIP, which also make direct reference to indigenous right to seeds. There is a strong case to be made that what’s happening now is going against what Canada has already signed and the fact that Canada hasn’t sign UNDROP should not remove it from the list of reasons why we should question what the government is allowing corporate giants to do.

What do you think are the main challenges to implement the UNDROP?

One of the major obstacles is language used in the UNDROP. It’s challenging to get the ear of policy makers because of the understanding of the word peasant and of the peasantry as a social group, it’s not well understood in Canada and the English language more broadly, because it’s often referred to in a pejorative way. There are strong cases for the political use of the term peasant, but when it comes to actual policy making and advocacy work there are still a lot of disconnects. Here, agriculture policy is geared towards corporate industrial farming and the language of peasant might denote a political or social identity contrary to what Canadian agriculture is trying to be perceived as at home or abroad. ‘Peasant’ flies in the face of ‘entrepreneur’, and gives the impression of backwardness to those who are not familiar with it in a political sense. In the same way, I think that one of the reasons why the government abstained during the adoption of the UNDROP at the UN is that they cannot see themselves in this term or how it could be applied in this context. Ultimately, there is still a lot of work to do in order to get everyone on the same page in terms of to the applicability of that kind language in the Canadian context.

So how to bridge that gap for farmers that are peasants in a global sense?

Someone who I looked up to a lot and consider a mentor, Nettie Wiebe, she is a former president of the NFU and an ICC member of LVC, she was present at the beginning of LVC. She was quoted by saying that when she thinks of the word peasant to her that means people of the land. This resonates with me: I consider myself a ‘person of the land’ because I work with land, nurture it, attempt to live in harmony with it and not extract from it. She believes that it’s really important to take that language back, to say that we are peasants because it’s our relationship to land and food that distinguishes us as a social group, that we are not part of the capitalist machine. We may function within a capitalist system, but we are not necessarily seeking capitalist ends, if that makes sense.

As you mention earlier, Canada has finally adopted the UNDRIP, after abstaining it at the General Assembly of the United Nation, how does this could influence and help the implementation of UNDROP?

What we desperately need in the food sovereignty and agroecology spaces across the country is to build coalitions and solidarity networks. We need to get out and talk to farmers who may not have the same politics or fundamental values, or speak with the same language, but at the core have the same needs and rights. We need to build bridges between farmers and towards people who have been dispossessed from their land such has indigenous people and people of colors. We need to reach out and find ways to make sure that our movement is growing. It’s only with that kind of growth and building of our network that we are ever going to have the capacity to do the sort of organizing that was accomplished in ratifying the UNDRIP in Canada.

I know that we have a strong base, but we also need to extend and expand and that has to come with a human touch. We have to go out to our communities and have open discussions with other farmers and people on the land that may not feel connected to a farming community or a more progressive community like the NFU, but maybe would welcome it giving the opportunity and someone reaching out. Speaking to peoples’ basic needs and desire to be part of community that is moving forwards together can be greater than any specific political opinion. Most farmers are part of the dominant farm organization, not the NFU, and it’s up to us to be creative and to reach where they are, not where we wish they were, politically. Through building this extended and expanded community we can use UNDROP as our building block, but at the grassroots level is where it should happen.

La entrada Interview of Jessie MacInnis, small-scale farmer in Canada and Peasants’ rights activist se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

A side-event to the 52 session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, titled “Respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of peasants and other rural workers – A clever move in times of multiple crises” was held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva on 15 March 2023. The side-event was co-organized by the Permanent Missions of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, South Africa, Luxembourg, South Centre, La Via Campesina, Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM), FIAN International and the Geneva Academy of international humanitarian law and human rights; with the support of some other partners.

The objective of the side event was to raise awareness about the contributions of peasants and other people working in rural areas to face the ongoing multiple crises, and discuss measures that can be adopted at national and regional level with the aim of respecting, protecting and fulfilling peasants’ rights. It also sought to encourage greater collaboration towards the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP), and highlight the initiative to create a new UN Special Procedure on the matter.

Raffaele Morgantini from CETIM welcomed the participants to the side-event and underscored the important role that peasants and rural communities had played in the adoption of UNDROP in 2018, which was particularly promoted by La Via Campesina. The UNDROP was supported by many developing countries, but Portugal and Luxembourg were the only countries from the European Union who also supported the adoption of the Declaration in 2018. The implementation of the Declaration at national and international levels could contribute to face the current multiple crises. The rise of ecological, social crises, concentration of capital and power, health crises are fuelling anti-democratic systems and impacting the lives of peasants and rural workers, especially in developing countries. UNDROP provides possible solutions to these issues, including through developing a common roadmap for fair, sustainable agro-ecological systems.

H.E. Freddy Mamani, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, spoke via video message, stressing the structural view to issues such as the global food crises which has led to 190 million people facing acute food insecurity, with risk of increasing famines. The global economic system based on extractivism has led to increased global hunger. With growing power of large transnational corporations, rights of peasants such as access to land, seeds and water are being limited. Unjust structural conditions are reinforcing power and capital accumulation, while violence and the structural inequality maintaining unjust circles are leading to widespread human rights violations. There is a need to include vulnerable peoples and close gaps in human rights protections, especially in rural areas. Ensuring access to seeds, land, technology is essential to achieving the aims of climate justice. UNDROP is an outcome of inclusive negotiations, incorporating global peasant movements whose efforts and importance need to be recognized. Now there is the need to move forward with the implementation of UNDROP, which can support the fight against poverty and discrimination. Peasants cannot be left behind in recovery and sustainable development. The Vice-Minister concluded by calling on countries to work towards socialization and implementation of UNDROP.

Marcela Arias from the Mission of Honduras then spoke about how the multiple social and economic crises, as well as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have increased poverty. Climate change is making matters worse for many rural communities, which were already suffering. Honduras has a large number of peasants, and the government has been taking measures to reduce their land tenure vulnerability and revert past human rights violations. There are also structural measures being implemented to increase food sovereignty, which involve giving more rights and dignity to peasants. She expressed the commitment of Honduras to working together for realizing human rights for all, including the right to development, economic, social and cultural rights, and helping effectively address the mandate of implementing the UNDROP.

Dr. Carlos Correa, Executive Director at the South Centre, spoke about the work of the South Centre in supporting the UNDROP and its implementation. Dr. Correa expressed support for creating a new UN special procedure for implementation of the UNDROP, and how it can help realize fundamental rights, including the right to land. Noting the importance of recognizing the role of women peasants, Dr. Correa said that the access to seeds and preserving traditional knowledge of peasants are vital for realizing the right to food. However, agri-business practices and laws have imposed limitations on traditional peasants’ practices, notably the ancestral practice of saving and re-using seeds. Highlighting restrictions on farmers’ rights to use seeds, such as via the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) or patents, Dr. Correa said that, paradoxically, in some European countries and Switzerland, patent laws allow for broader exceptions than those available in many developing countries. Thus it is important to implement UNDROP at all levels, working with all stakeholders to remove restrictions on the rights of peasants. In access to seeds, peasants and rural workers should be free to preserve their food sovereignty.

Zainal Arifin Fuat representing Serikat Petani Indonesia/La Via Campesina said that the current extractive development paradigm is deepening gaps and inequalities. The conflict in Ukraine is having repercussions on food security, while the over-reliance on imports for food grains is increasing hunger in developing countries. The problem is not the lack of food, but the speculative trading system which restricts its availability to all. The implementation of UNDROP presents an opportunity to correct these issues. The Special Rapporteur on the right to food has highlighted that governments are not acting quickly in dealing with food crises. Governments need to create a concrete cooperation process and plan of action to tackle the food crisis. Supporting peasants in developing countries and increasing investment in sustainable agriculture, local and regional food systems to reduce reliance on imports and increase food security are vital. There is the need to ensure the rights of vulnerable people and create a new process to implement UNDROP, which can help move away from a profit driven system to a people centred system.

Svetlana Boinceau, from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) representing workers in the entire food chain spoke next. She highlighted that the agricultural sector employs the largest number of wage workers in the world, yet many of them suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Despite being designated as essential workers during the pandemic, they were not given adequate protections. Labour laws either don’t cover them or are not properly implemented, which leads to their rights not being respected. The available national and international standards all have exceptions that end up excluding agricultural workers and leaving them without legal protection. The UNDROP is a useful instrument, but it must be fully implemented to improve the situation of workers. It is particularly urgent as climate change is making conditions worse for agricultural workers.

Saul Vicente Vasquez representing the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), also spoke via video message. He highlighted that there are about 476 million indigenous people around the world, which includes many women and young people. They are facing serious threats, and pollution is making their situation worse. Peasants are facing degraded lands and an increase in deforestation, which is leading to further biodiversity loss. Agriculture is not sustainable if it is reliant on deforestation, as is the case in some Latin American countries. Peasants and rural workers help support biodiversity, rural development, and preservation of cultural rights, as for them land and water form an indivisible unit. Private appropriation of land is unimaginable in such contexts. He called on further using traditional knowledge to revive damaged ecosystems.

Christophe Golay from the Geneva Academy for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law reiterated support to creating a new special mechanism under the aegis of the Human Rights Council to ensure the effective implementation of UNDROP. He also informed about the launch of a new website on defending peasants’ rights and promoting the implementation of the UNDROP (https://defendingpeasantsrights.org/).

Following the panel, there were some interventions from the floor.

Cuba reiterated its support to the implementation of UNDROP, noting that peasants’ efforts are critical in food production. Highlighting the risks that peasants have in facing with the multiple crises, there is a need to address the unfair international order and change the international financial architecture which worsens these crises. Rethinking issues such as foreign debt, Official Development Aid (ODA), technology transfer, and strengthening special and differential treatment for developing countries, is required.

South Africa said that given the multitude of evolving crises, ensuring the advance of all human rights universally and without discrimination is important. Peasants’ rights intersect with the right to food and the environment, especially in rural areas. These are also included in the South African constitution. The issues of food sovereignty, dignity and peasant’s rights are linked and need to be fully implemented.

Portugal took the floor next, noting that the right to food and peasants’ rights as can be found in the UNDROP also find mention in their national Constitution. It therefore also supported the implementation of the Declaration and the evolution of these rights in international law.

Ana Maria Suárez-Franco from FIAN International gave the concluding remarks, noting the consensus views in the room of the impacts of ongoing multiple crises on peasants, and said that peasants and rural workers are contributing with solutions for sustainable agro-ecology and the planet.

She emphasised that having the UNDROP is good, but its implementation at all levels is key, including through international cooperation for effective measures to be taken to protect the rights of peasants. A new UN special procedure on the rights of peasants, which would need to be established through a resolution in the Human Rights Council, would be critical. Having a fragmented way to monitor the implementation of UNDROP is insufficient and can lead to gaps in human rights protections. A specific, dedicated mechanism is necessary for fulfilling the rights of peasants and of those working in rural areas, who ultimately are responsible for putting food on our plates.

Watch the video of the event:

Author: Danish is Programme Officer of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Programme (SDCC) of the South Centre.

La entrada Human Rights Council Side Event: The Rights of Peasants and Rural Workers in times of multiple crises held in Geneva se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

 (October 26, 2022) From 25 to 28 October 2022, the city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, will host La Via Campesina’s global meeting on the rights of migrants and rural workers. Fifty peasant delegates from different parts of the world are participating in this hybrid (physical and virtual) event. La Via Campesina (LVC) Honduras is hosting the meeting in coordination with the Collective on Migration and Rural Workers of La Via Campesina.

The event is an effort by the movement to unify peasant voices in relation to the struggles of rural wage workers and the reality they face with migration, given that the majority of the world’s rural labour force is from migration. This was expressed by delegates from the Arab and North Africa (ARNA) region, Asia, Central America, South America, North America, the Caribbean and Europe, who, in addition to their concerns, shared a regional report of the work they are doing as part of the struggle agenda of each organisation that is part of La Via Campesina. This activity is of paramount importance because while the delegation recognised the global migration crisis, there is an urgent need to find real solutions to this crisis by prioritising the defence of human rights.

It is important to note that a delegation mainly from Africa and Asia is participating virtually due to the limitations of migratory mobility (linked to difficulty in obtaining travel documents because of lack of embassies to issue such documents in these continents) which did not allow them to participate physically. The plenary highlighted this limitation as evidence of the racist and colonial policies that are constantly being pursued at the borders.

The agenda of the activity included thematic discussions such as: the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in the Rural Workers (UNDROP) and its importance in defending the rights of waged workers and migrants; international labour regulations in the countryside and the situation of waged labour in Central America and the world, as well as LVC’s articulation work with the Global Solidarity Pact.

In the following days, the delegates will have exchanges with Honduran social movements and local authorities. All these highlights are oriented to contribute to the construction of an action plan for the working collective of La Via Campesina in its struggle to build processes that defend the rights of migrants and rural workers. We hope to strengthen the actions for the following year, in view of the VIII International Conference of La Via Campesina, as well as the crucial events of migrant struggles in different regions.

Why is Honduras hosting this world meeting?

We chose Honduras as the venue for our meeting because of its geographical position in the middle of the migratory routes to North America, from where the caravans of protest and resistance against colonialism, racism and border repression depart. It is also a territory where rural labour has historically been exploited in agricultural plantations, mainly in the hands of multinational capital. We come to defend the public policies promoted by the people in favour of food sovereignty, peasants’ rights and agrarian reform, as part of the new political process of the Honduran people.

For the respect of the fundamental rights of rural workers and migrants.

Peasants’ rights now!

#PeasantRightsNow #DignifiedAgriculturalWorkNow! #MigrationIsNotaCrime

Read the final Declaration of the Global Meeting of La Via Campesina on the Rights of Migrant and Rural Workers

La entrada Honduras: La Via Campesina Global Meeting on Migrant and Rural Workers’ Rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.