Radio Mundo Real

Under the theme “Food Sovereignty Yes, Agribusiness No”, La Via Campesina had on Wednesday a press conference in the framework of the World Peoples´ Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba. Several leaders of the movement participated, among them Henry Saragih, Via Campesina General Coordinator, from Indonesia, the member of the Peasant Confederation from France, Josie Riffaud, and a representative of the National Union of Regional Peasant Organizations from Mexico, Alberto Gomez.

Gomez said at the press conference: “We came here filled with enthusiasm and with the idea to discuss our vision in terms of the cause of climate crisis: capitalism”. “This industrial model of production and consumption is what is causing global warming”, he added.

A few days before, Real World Radio interviewed in Cochabamba another Via Campesina leader, Carlos Marentes, from the Border Agricultural Workers Project, from El Paso, Texas, in the border between the US and Mexico.

Marentes also talked about the forced migration of peasants due to their living conditions and as a consequence of environmental phenomena caused by climate change.

“It is very important for us that the issue of the forced migration of 210 million peoples in the world, who don´t have a home, be taken into account in the debate to find real alternatives to climate change”, he concluded.