Minute for Mission: International Day of Farmers’ Struggles

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Don Abel López holds a pumpkin. (Photo courtesy of CERDET)

April 17 marks the International Day of Farmer and Peasant Struggles.[i] It is a day when we recognize the sacrifices of smallholder producer farmers who tend the garden and nourish the world. 

Centro de Estudios Regionales para el Desarrollo de Tarija (CERDET), a partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, founded in 1989, is a regional NGO that works alongside Indigenous and peasant communities in the Gran Chaco region to defend human rights and provide legal, technical and social support. Through close partnerships with local organizations, it focuses on strengthening community leadership, gender equity, food security and climate resilience.

Its work includes securing land rights, supporting sustainable and agroecological livelihoods, improving access to water and food, and empowering women and youth. CERDET also helps communities build democratic governance, develop local economies, and respond to violence and environmental challenges.

Don Abel López, 74 years old, is the leader of the Weenhayek Indigenous community of Los Pozos, located in the far south of Bolivia, near the border with Argentina. He lives in the Gran Chaco region, where summer temperatures reach 44°C, the soils are sandy, and rainwater is scarce, making agricultural activities extremely difficult.

These Indigenous people, numbering fewer than 6,000 in Bolivia, dedicate six months of the year to fishing in the Pilcomayo River during autumn and winter — a season they consider the time of abundance, as it allows them to sell fish and generate income. The other six months, the hottest of the year, are the hardest for the survival of these families, who turn to harvesting honey from the forest, making handicrafts and gathering wild fruits.

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The family of Don Abel López farming together. (Photo courtesy of CERDET)

Don Abel is one of the few community leaders who has continued the practices of growing corn, squash, watermelons and some vegetables during the rainy season. Through his efforts, he is gradually motivating and encouraging his children and grandchildren to learn how to grow food during the most difficult time of the year. With the support of CERDET through projects backed by Dutch Protestant churches and the Presbyterian Hunger Program from the United States, these Indigenous families are applying agroecological techniques and progressively improving their food security, while also encouraging other families to take up agriculture. 

He says: “We are producing healthy food without using agrochemicals, and I am happy that my grandchildren help me and want to learn how to grow watermelons and vegetables.”

Since 1996, in memory of the massacre of 19 Brazilian landless peasants who were brutally assassinated, the Via Campesina, an international peasants’ movement, has declared April 17 to be the International Day of Farmer and Peasant Struggles, a day for recognizing the struggles of smallholder food producers globally and organizing actions in support of food sovereignty and food justice.

Guido Cortez Franco, the Chief Executive Officer for Centro de Estudios Regionales para el Desarrollo de Tarija (Cerdet)

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Barry Creech, Senior Director, Denominational Identity & Formation, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Freddy Cruz, Program Assistant, Financial Planning, Organizational Planning and Operations, Presbyterian Life & Witness

Let us pray:

Creator, we pray today for the farmers and families of CERDET, who care for their lands in the Chaco with resilience, wisdom and deep love for their communities. We give thanks for their commitment to nourishing their people and protecting their territories. We pray for a world where Indigenous and peasant farmers can live with dignity, with secure land, access to water, and the ability to sustain their livelihoods in harmony with creation. Strengthen the leadership of women and young people, and uplift their voices in shaping a just and hopeful future. We pray for protection from violence, for justice where rights have been denied, and for healing in communities that have endured hardship. May all who work the land experience peace, security and your sustaining grace. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - International Day of Farmers’ Struggles is April 17

Pacific Islanders reinvigorate traditional food systems and community unity

April 16, 2022

Weeding the tomato plants. (Photo courtesy of PCC)

In the Pacific, subsistence farming on land and subsistence fishing remains a foundation of livelihoods across our sea of islands, as well as a source of income. Climate change induced extreme weather (storms, cyclones/hurricanes, droughts, floods, etc.) and salt-water inundation from rising seas has already had a major impact on our plantations and farms.

From 2020 onward, as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Pacific Island countries that depend on tourism were affected severely. Fiji, which is the largest of these countries, was affected badly, with laid-off workers in tourism-related industries, such as hotels and travel companies, turning to farming and fishing for survival.

The impact of the first wave of COVID-19 border closures and lockdowns was compounded by climate-induced extreme weather patterns (severe tropical cyclones). This reduced agricultural production, food, and incomes. Families and communities sought ways to increase their own households’ production of root crops, vegetables and fruits.

Urban families and communities were the most affected with limited space to plant. In the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga, the Pacific Conference of Churches with partners, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), developed two responses to support resilience to COVID-19 and food security through seedbanks (in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) and urban foodbanks (in Tonga and Fiji) in the form of an urban-based farms with land belonging to the Tongan National Council of Churches (Tonga) and the Pacific Conference of Churches (Fiji). These urban foodbanks, managed and farmed by TNCC (Tonga) and PCC (Fiji) staff, provided fresh vegetables for families and communities not able to afford them from markets or grow them due to lack of access to arable land as well as those in care facilities (seniors, children).  

In rural communities, cultural safety networks and traditional food systems have been reinvigorated. In Fijian villages, the concept of Solesolevaki (community unity, reciprocity, trust and social capital) meant that every member of the community was valued and cared for, and that all worked collectively in farming plantations, fishing and other subsistence activities during the lockdown. As more Fijians found themselves unemployed due to the pandemic, they began to either return to their villages or utilize the practices of Solesolevaki in their urban communities.

The pressure of a capitalist market-oriented economy imposed on many Pacific developing countries, has led, over time, to a shift from the values of community well-being and a perspective of abundance, to one of profit and scarcity. Initially this influenced individual and community responses to the impacts of COVID-19: people in urban areas caught as much fish as they could, in case there no fish tomorrow; farming focused on short-term gain at the expense of the ecosystem. The practices of communal reciprocity, community unity and social capital had been replaced by individualism, materialism and selfishness.

The Pacific Conference of Churches Lomana Na Vulagi (Love the Stanger) Eco-Farm, established with support from the Presbyterian Hunger Program, seeks to model resilient, Indigenous farming techniques that are in harmony with the environment. Vulagi (Visitor or Foreigner) denotes the temporary tenure on Earth and recalls God’s exhortation to the Israelites on the lessons of hospitality and care to be learned from the experience in Egypt. The Eco-Farm is seen as an example to ecumenical and secular communities alike, throughout the region on how to put land to use in a sustainable, responsible and economically rewarding manner. This means the minimum destruction of trees and disruption of water sources, using available technology to reduce soil erosion, promoting organic farming methods for wellness and sustainability.

We observe the International Day of Farmers Struggles on April 17 every year to recognize the struggles of smallholder food producers globally and organize actions in support of food sovereignty and food justice.

Rev. James Bhagwan, Pacific Conference of Churches, Fiji

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Jenny Oldham, Administrative Assistant, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Dayna Oliver, Associate, International Program Administration, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Let us pray

We continue to pray for those farming communities who have been forced by necessity to shift from Indigenous, ecologically sensitive farming to a capitalist, unsustainable model of farming, and development. We pray for the courage and wisdom to help us reweave our models of farming, community and faith, so that in difficult times, we are resilient, unafraid and being ecologically sensitive.

Minute for Mission: International Day of Farmers’ Struggles

April 17, 2021

A woman poses with the pig she received.

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for farmers in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon (English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions). About 75% of the population earns their livelihood through farming. Many of these farmers are women who produce the bulk of food eaten in most households across the regions and beyond. Farmers in these regions are faced with many challenges from the impacts of climate change and the current Anglophone crisis.

Thousands of smallholder farmers in the Anglophone regions have been forced off their lands into neighboring villages and towns due to armed conflict between the Francophone (French-speaking) controlled government forces and Anglophone separatists seeking to form an independent state.

As a result of the Anglophone crisis, crops have been left unprotected from extreme weather, pests and diseases, and abandoned livestock have starved to death or been killed during military invasions. The forced abandonment of these farms has crippled the economy of the regions, increasing hunger, malnutrition and poverty and turned food producers into food beggars. Furthermore, many displaced farmers are faced with limited access to agricultural extension services, land, inputs, credit and trainings.

Community Initiative for Sustainable Environment and Gender Development (CISEGD), in partnership with the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), is working to promote sustainable agriculture and serve people and communities in need of sustenance and hope in Batibo, in the Northwest region of Cameroon (one of the two Anglophone regions).  

Since the Anglophone crisis started, CISEGD has been working on several projects and activities that are helping farmers to engage in sustainable agriculture for a better future. The integrated yam project, carried out in 2018, is a model of an integrated farming system aimed at fighting hunger through improving soil productivity to increase yam yields for nutrition, livelihood improvement and biodiversity conservation. The project has helped farmers and displaced people address hunger, rapid degradation of rural agricultural and forest landscapes, lost biodiversity, extreme poverty and climate change.

In 2019, CISEGD initiated a project to promote smallholder integrated farming systems in which staple food crops, vegetable gardens, trees, bee farming and small animal husbandry were intermixed on the same piece of land in a harmonized and symbiotic manner, where each component supports and benefits from the other while conserving the environment and improving the overall productivity. Thanks to PHP support, an integrated farm composed of livestock, beekeeping, tree planting, mushroom cultivation and vegetable production components were established on 1.5 hectares of land in Guzang village, Batibo, Cameroon to serve as an agricultural training farm that has and will continue to empower hundreds and thousands of smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices that enhance agricultural productivity on a small land area while conserving the environment.

In 2020, CISEGD also initiated a project known as “passing on the gift” to support vulnerable farm families in Batibo affected by the Anglophone crises. The project is helping farmers and people internally displaced by the crisis to achieve social, economic and environmental secured livelihoods through animal banking/donations and capacity building. Hundreds of people have been empowered with animal gifts and mushroom seeds to kick-start their own farm enterprise. Each farm family who receives an animal/mushroom seed gift is expected to pass on the first female offspring as well as mushroom seeds to another farmer in need.

Thanks to PHP grant support, generations of farmers in Batibo will benefit from these efforts.

ATABA Jude FONSAH, Coordinator of CISEGD

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Lorraine Henry, Board of Pensions
Brian Henson, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

God, we pray for the Anglophone farmers and a return of peace. Help our farmers to take care of the earth’s resources, cherish them and pass them on safely to the next generation. Bless all those who have contributed to our work and grant us perseverance and openness to your will. Amen.

Minute for Mission: International Day of Farmers’ Struggles

April 17, 2020

The Northeast region is one of Nigeria’s agricultural centers, producing cereals, vegetables and livestock. However, the increasing incidence of Boko Haram violence there has devastated agricultural production in the region. People have had their property destroyed, livelihoods disrupted, and have been displaced from their ancestral homes and farmlands.

The Presbyterian Hunger Program is currently supporting work by our partner the Civil Society for Poverty Eradication (CISCOPE) to assist smallholder farmers in Northeast Nigeria to restart agricultural activities after being displaced by violent conflict. The communities supported through CISCOPE’s work are attempting to rehabilitate their agricultural activities and lives after Boko Haram militants burned down homes and fields, stole farming tools and food stocks, and raped women and girls.

On this International Day of Farmers’ Struggles, we celebrate the resiliency of smallholder farmers in Northeast Nigeria who are willing to restart their food production after losing everything even while the threat of future violence looms. And we celebrate our partner CISCOPE, whose dedicated staff are willing to risk their own safety to do this important work.

Eileen Schuhmann, Mission Specialist for International Hunger Concerns, Presbyterian Hunger Program

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Terri Bowman, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Debbie Braaksma, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we pray for those who are faced with conflict and uncertainty that they may know and feel the certainty of your constant presence and love. We ask that you accompany the people of Northeast Nigeria as they work to rebuild their lives, nourish their families and re-establish peace. We pray that all your people may know your abundance and your peace. Amen.