For three days, the eighth edition of the Festival brought all the diversity and richness of traditional peoples to Jaru, Rondonia. Credit: REC/UNIR Research and Extension Group
Between July 27 and 29, the eighth edition of the Peasant Festival, in Jaru, Rondonia, drew attention for the diversity of themes, foods, seeds, arts, and expressions it presented. With the motto “for integral ecology and climate justice,” the Festival, organized by La Vía Campesina, sought to draw attention to the role of traditional peoples in addressing the environmental crisis through their cultures.
“We want to demonstrate that there is no possibility of overcoming the climate and environmental crisis individually, much less through the market,” said Leila Meurer of the Small Farmers Movement (MPA).
According to Meurer, the 8th Festival sought to affirm that peasant agriculture and its great diversity, values, and the vision of its organizations offer the possibility of overcoming the environmental crisis. Being comprehensive, it also aligns itself with a proposal that extends to cities.
In total, more than 600 La Vía Campesina activists participated in the construction of the festival. Eleven Brazilian states were represented, in addition to grassroots organizations from Venezuela, Colombia, and Bolivia. Furthermore, the agroecological fair held during the event featured around thirty food and craft stands, produced through the labor of peasants, Indigenous people, and Amazonian riverside dwellers.
According to Beatriz Buffon, of the MST’s national leadership, the event rescues the symbols and historical values of traditional peoples as a way to highlight their existence.
“We want to demonstrate that we continue to exist and will continue to build ways to strengthen dialogue among traditional peoples, but also with the city,” Buffon said.
Over the three days, the Farmers’ Festival offered the people of Jaru debates on the environmental crisis, discussion circles on agroecology, mental health, and youth challenges, among other topics, as well as practical workshops on brown sugar, beekeeping, spring restoration, and other topics. In the evening, several artistic and musical performances presented the cultural diversity of traditional communities to the city of more than 50,000 inhabitants.
In addition to the adults, 60 children participated in the Farmers’ Festival, with the collaboration of 27 childcare workers.
The Exchange of Native Seeds Strengthens Traditional Peoples as Guardians.
On the afternoon of the 28th, all the attention of those attending the Festival was focused on the now traditional exchange of native seeds. This year, the event featured around 300 different varieties of seeds. A special highlight was the Rio de Janeiro bean, cultivated and improved for more than 40 years by peasant families, a symbol of resilience and preservation of native seeds.
“In the exchange of seeds, varieties are found that, sometimes, the family had already lost, or had intended to seek out, multiply, and ensure the possibility of continuing to produce food,” said Leila Meurer.
According to the activist, the exchange is a way to strengthen biodiversity as a way to build and guarantee food sovereignty.
The growth in the use of genetically modified seeds, in parallel with the increasing extinction of native seeds, is denounced by La Vía Campesina. According to UN data, 75% of seed diversity has been lost in the last century. It is estimated that more than 95% of soybeans grown in the country come from genetically modified seeds, followed by cotton and corn, with 89% and 88%, respectively. This makes agribusiness the main vector for the expansion of genetically modified seeds. According to the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection, it is already known that genetically modified seeds can pose certain risks to human health.
For Beatriz Buffon, this context demonstrates that the seed exchange is also a moment of protest.
“We want to demonstrate in practice a diversity and richness that agribusiness will never have, because while they seek to standardize seeds through genetically modified seeds, thereby destroying nature, we are here demonstrating that we are the true guardians of seeds and the environment,” she points out.
Café Campesino brought real food to Jaru.
“We are seeing that hunger is a weapon of war, a concrete reality in Gaza, in Palestine,” said Leila Meurer, during the opening of Café Campesino. “We live in the sad reality of hunger and poor nutrition based on ultra-processed foods that make people sick and cause after-effects and death,” she denounced.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the entire population of Gaza is at risk of extreme hunger. “Gaza is the hungriest place in the world. (…) 100% of the population is at risk of extreme hunger,” said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.
To demonstrate that it is possible to overcome this reality, on the morning of Sunday the 29th, Café Campesino reached out to the people of Jaru. From dawn, La Vía Campesina activists were preparing the dishes to be served at the Café. At dawn, more than a ton of food, with 38 types of food, was ready to be shared. Around the tables, hundreds of people were able to enjoy, free of charge, all the richness of peasant food.
“We materialize on the table what we defend politically,” said Beatriz Buffon. “Our goal is abundance for all people, that everyone can have access to healthy and diverse food,” she said.
For Meurer, the café was a moment to showcase the diversity of foods that generate health, without ultra-processed, real foods. “Coffee is proof that we have the capacity to produce food; what we lack is the necessary investment, the concrete conditions, access to land, the right to produce, incentives for production, and access to bio-inputs,” she emphasized.