Between February 24 and 28, representatives of grassroots movements and Indigenous peoples from around the world will gather in Cartagena, Colombia, for the2nd International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARDD+20). Delegates from more than 70 countries are expected to attend.
The event comes two decades after the first edition, held in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, in March 2006. Over this period, land concentration has intensified, while large landowners and corporations have refined mechanisms of land grabbing and water appropriation, increasing the urgency of proposals aimed at protecting both ecosystems and rural communities.
“Peasant communities, Indigenous peoples, and small-scale food producers, who feed most of the world and protect ecosystems, are facing a new wave of dispossession driven by militarization, organized crime, big tech, and the commodification of climate action,” states a note released by La Via Campesina to announce the gathering.
Although international forums exist to debate environmental crises, such as United Nations climate conferences (COPs), the realities faced by people living in affected territories are often absent from these discussions, said Saúl Vicente Vásquez, coordinator of the Food Sovereignty Program at the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC).
“The impacts of the climate crisis, water scarcity, and desertification are experienced directly in the territories. It is the communities inhabiting these ecosystems who suffer the consequences,” Vásquez said.
“If we do not critically reflect on what is happening on the land and in these territories, proposed solutions will be false or fail to address the real problems,” he added.
Geopolitical conflicts have further intensified threats against these populations. In this context, the conference also aims to highlight how global power struggles affect both rural and urban workers and to discuss public policies to defend peoples’ rights and autonomy.
“Our struggle for agrarian reform today is inseparable from the fight against imperialism, authoritarianism, and ecological collapse. CIRADR+20 will be a critical moment to strengthen collective efforts to reclaim land and territories, restore dignity to rural populations, build food sovereignty, and defend the foundations of life,” the Via Campesina statement said.
Land concentration ‘no longer acceptable’
In 2006, the conference’s final declaration called for agrarian reform, highlighting land redistribution as a key strategy to address poverty.
The document outlined the need to “establish appropriate agrarian reform, especially in regions marked by deep social inequalities, poverty, and food insecurity, as a way to expand sustainable access to and control over land and related resources.”
Twenty years later, redistributing land for food production remains a central issue and has gained new urgency amid the expansion of monoculture farming and escalating climate pressures.
“Brazil is the country with one of the highest levels of land concentration in the world. That is no longer acceptable,” said Jaime Amorim, a member of the National Coordination of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and South American representative in La Via Campesina’s International Coordination. He emphasized that agrarian reform should be understood not only as a solution to large landholding structures but also as a pathway to transforming agricultural production.
“Most of the food consumed worldwide is produced by small farmers, many linked to agrarian reform processes and traditional communities,” Amorim said.
Beyond food production, rural communities also play a crucial role in environmental preservation, while large-scale agribusiness, driven by concentrated land ownership and major corporations, is responsible for the majority of deforestation, he added.
“The Brazilian government must comply with its constitution, which clearly states that unproductive large estates that fail to fulfill their social function should be expropriated and converted into agrarian reform settlements,” Amorim concluded.
Edited by: Luís Indriunas
Translated by: Giovana Guedes
First published by Brasil de Fato