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[Interview] Morgan Ody – Insights from Via Campesina [English]

    For the second time I speak to Morgan Ody, farmer from Brittany in Western France and the current coordinator of Via Campesina: The global alliance of small scale farmers or peasants that the AbL is part of.

    I asked Morgan for this interview because I find it striking how big and influential Via Campesina is but how little people know about it. So I asked her about her work, what she has done since our last conversation in September, about the issues that they worked on in that time, and especially about Via Campesinas most recent campaign on Free Trade.

    In the first half, we talked about Via Campesina as a peace movement, how they deal with the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, in Sudan and Kongo and with militant gangs in Mali and Haiti. We talked about the important work on peasant feminism that comes from the work done by the member organisations in Latin America and is slowly reaching the other countries. And we talked about the value of international exchange.

    In the second half, we moved to a topic that is currently close to my heart: Free Trade and Food Sovereignty. These are the issues why Via Campesina was created in the first place. Peasant worldwide realised that they need to ally on a global scale because the free trade is putting them into competition with each other and destroying peasant existences everywhere. Today, Via Campesina is rediscovering its founding-issue and is launching a long-term campaign on replacing the World Trade Organisation.