International Day of Peasant Struggles

On 17th April 1996, members of Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) were shot dead by military police in Para, northern Brazil. This resulted into mass resentment around the world. La Via Campensina responded with solidarity actions and demands for justice, mobilising peasant communities in Brazil, Latin America and the world over. La Via Campensina declared April 17 as an International Day of Peasant struggles as a way of keeping the peasant resistance alive in memory.

For the International Day of Peasant Struggles 2020, the clarion call was Stay home but not remain Silent. The theme called for creative ways of mobilising given the impact of Covid- 19 on normal life including organising and carrying out activities across many parts of the world. Communities the world over were called upon to transform the windows, terraces and field into demonstration squares, to denounce capitalist hegemony, to build solidarity within communities and pledge to consume food from local peasant cooperatives and communities and not from transnationals.

Peasants are the main or sole food providers to more than 70% of the world’s people and peasants produce this food with less (often much less) than 25% of the resources – including land, water, fossil fuels. On the other hand, the Industrial Food Chain uses at least 75% of the world’s agricultural resources and is a major source of Green House Gases (GHG) emissions, but provides food to less than 30% of the world’s population.[1] ETC Group estimates about 70% of the population (4.5–5.5 billion of the world’s 7.5 billion people), depend on the Peasant Food Web for most or all of their food. ETC Group further asserts that the Peasant Food Web nurtures 9-100 times the biodiversity used by the food chain across plants, livestock, fish and forests, in addition, peasants have the knowledge, innovative energy and networks needed to respond to climate change.[2]

Struggles of peasant farmers in Africa are many and varied. Many a times peasant farmers are deliberately left out of policy processes where decisions concerning their modes of production are being discussed .In many instances when a policy on agriculture , climate change or fishery is being discussed peasant farmers are often represented by  farmers who have large farms and produce for export .Fisherfolk are rarely asked to share their experiences of how flooding  is affecting fish or how climate change and disposing of industrial waste in rivers and lakes is subjecting them to less fish stocks.Indigenous people are never asked during policy processes what is their input before a multinational company starts digging for oil , gas and other minerals in the indigenous people’s territories. In addition, policies are often written in very technical jargon further alienating peasant from understanding the content. Peasants are often unaware of the content of policy documents existing in their countries such as Land Policy, Climate Change Acts, Agriculture Act, National Adaptation Plans on Climate Change   among others. It is very sad to note that despite peasant feeding the world, they are not accorded the desired respect during policy processes. They are hardly invited to policy meetings, the assumption being they do not know anything which in essence is a fallacy because peasants have accumulated knowledge based on years of experience working on land.

Access to credit facilities is another uphill struggle peasants face. To access micro-finance, one must have collateral or must have saved money with a financial institution. In some cases, land is the only available item in a household that can be used as collateral for a loan. To add to the complex situation, when a calamity like illness visits such a household, the land is subdivided and off to pay for hospital bills or when a child in the family passes exams, the land is further subdivided to pay school fees or university fees.

The negative impact of climate change affected food production and distribution. Agriculture is the backbone of many countries in Africa. Climate change and the resultant changing weather patterns means that peasants are no longer assured of harvest, during drought, pastoralist communities are forced to migrate to other parts of their country and even cross borders to look for pasture. Crossing borders for a pastoralist is an insecurity in itself. From cattle disappearing during the long trek to getting confiscated across the national border[3].During droughts pastoralists go through heavy losses because to pastoralists cattle are not only a source of livelihoods but also a source of cultural identity.

Majority of those engaged in agricultural production in Africa are elderly people. Upon completion of their primary and secondary education, the next thing for many young people is to move to the urban areas in search of greener pastures. In many African countries land in villages is lying idle because the elderly can no longer till the land. This means that the elderly in the villages have to depend on remittance from the young who have migrated to cities. In some cases, young people reportedly sell off family land in order to buy a boda boda[4]  because they want quick money as has been reported in Uganda.[5]

Peasants in Africa suffer from food losses in the production chain. The bulk of these losses occur at harvest stage. This is   due to lack of adequate locally adopted ways of increasing the shelf life of their produce. Many times when there is bumper harvest, markets for the given products are eroded due to oversupply. A good example is mangoes, when there is oversupply some farmers dump sacks of mangoes by the roadside because there is no market. Another example experienced in Kenya is farmers pouring milk because the market prices has fallen drastically[6].This is also due to farmers spending a lot of money on animal feeds making the cost of production to go up.

Additionally, some roads become impassable during long rains cutting off farmers from the market. Flooding is another challenge where peasants in affected areas end up losing cattle, lives and their economies get disrupted when river banks and lakes burst their banks. As observed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted globally each year, one third of all food produced for human consumption[7].

Unequal control of resources is another challenge and this specifically affects women. For example, in rural communities, women do not control productive resources. In a household farm produce are divided along gender lines. Men control food produce that fetch more income than women. In animal keeping women are only allowed to sell milk while it is the man who makes a decision when a cow is to be sold and how the money is going to be spent. In addition, a more sinister phenomenon is taking place where due to land ownership issues, young people are branding the elderly as witches and killing them in order to take over the land. Within the Coastal counties, land ownership is still an emotive issue with the resource notably the cause of the killing of most elders[8]. The killings have rendered elderly men fearful in a situation where white hair signified witchcraft. People fear getting old. Development projects have also been responsible negative impacts on lives and livelihoods of peasants. For example, construction or a railway line, airport or a road means that peasants lose their land, in some cases, if lucky enough they get compensated but due to lack of financial literacy, this money is wasted. Instead of a compensated family moving out of poverty, they go deeper into poverty. There are incidences where when husbands get compensation money, they run away from their families and go to the nearest town or city, get a new wife and squander all the money then come back home empty handed. Such is the case of some land owners in Taita Taveta[9]- a coastal part of Kenya.

In marketing systems, peasants get exploited, by middlemen who buy farm produce in bulk at cheap prices and resell them in markets in towns and cities at supernormal profits. Another form of economic exploitation is when peasant grow food on contractual basis for exports. Through this peasant end up using almost all of their land for cash crop farming, making household food security a challenge. It is not uncommon to see peasant taking sweet potatoes to the market and buying crisps for their children not understanding that the nutritional content found in sweet potatoes is of higher value compared to processed food. Other forms of exploitation take part in markets when customers bargain too much when buying from roadside food sellers or those engaged in the informal sector, whereas in supermarkets, you pay at the till what is indicated on the price tag, no bargaining.

When crops are growing, peasants who have not yet adopted agroecology have to buy chemicals and seeds from agrovets. There have been cases of farmers complaining that seeds bought from agrovets do not grow. Furthermore, overuse of chemicals erodes nutrients from the soil. Farmers get chained to agrovets where they go and buy seeds and chemicals year after year. `

In the context of international trade, the struggles come in uneven trade relations where global south are relegated to be producers of primary produce for markets in the global north. In the global north these products get processed and resold back to the Global South at prices the initial producers of these products cannot afford. A situation to reflect on for example is how many cocoa farmers in Ghana can afford chocolate or how many farmers in central Kenya can afford coffee at Java, yet they are the ones who toil the land to produce coffee and tea for the global markets.

The struggles of peasants call us to rethink our food production systems and accord peasants the respect they deserve, ensuring production systems do not exploit the poor and ensure sustainable use of Mother Earth’s resources.

NB: on 17 April 2020, three organisations ( Haki Nawiri Afrika Tujitegemee and Kenyan Peasants League) ,co-organised the International Day of Peasants to reflect how Covid-19 has impacted on peasants in Kenya.

[1] http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/etc-whowillfeedus-english-webshare.pdf

[2] http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/etc-whowillfeedus-english-webshare.pdf

[3] https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Magufuli-Kenya-cattle-diplomacy/4552908-4177942-j3amqr/index.html

[4] Boda boda refers to a motorcycle

[5] https://witnessradio.org/ugandan-youth-must-treasure-land-as-a-source-of-livelihood/

[6] https://mobile.nation.co.ke/counties/Farmers-pour-out-milk-over-low-prices/1950480-5383238-13ikrs5z/index.html

[7] https://en.reset.org/knowledge/global-food-waste-and-its-environmental-impact-09122018

[8] https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/kilifi/Witchcraft-tales-put-Kilifi-elders-lives-risk/1183282-5069132-11emc26/index.html

[9] https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/taita-taveta/land-owners-blow-cash/1183326-4741416-4r3o33/index.html