Dear Friend,

You and I have stood with peasants and small farmers — for years in some cases. We have seen their struggles, victories and defeats. And now, as peasant movements celebrate the 25th anniversary of food sovereignty, it’s time for us to recommit to solidarity.

Food sovereignty means building a world where peasants, small farmers, and Indigenous Peoples have real control over their food, lands, waters, and territories. Since October 1996, movements have used the concept to advance a real alternative to corporate schemes to dominate the food system. In celebration, we’re launching our Sustaining the Struggle campaign to resource these movements for years to come.

In Piaui, Brazil, Grandmother Alves was proud that her family had thrived as farmers and members of a farming collective for over 100 years. And she understood they maintained their healthy lives and productive land through the sustainable wisdom of food sovereignty.

For generations, this community of the Indigenous Gamela People nourished dozens of families, supplied local food markets, and preserved a traditional way of life.

Until one day, when armed men arrived with a local businessman, waving a piece of paper, demanding, “Get off my property!"

Outrageously, the land thieves threw out the Alves family and neighbors at gunpoint. They quickly grew hungry. All so the super rich could get richer establishing monocrop industrial farms — laying waste to the land, depleting and poisoning local water resources, and destroying countless lives.

This is not only a struggle of peasants and Indigenous People. It is a feminist struggle too. When families are forced off their farms, burdens, of course, fall hardest on women, including Grandmother Alves. They are the only ones providing healthcare and food for their people.

Fortunately, our partner Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos came to the defense of the Alves family and the Gamela communities. With funds from you and other Grassroots supporters, Rede Social worked with the Alves family to seek — and win — real justice. After a lawsuit by Rede Social, a Piaui judge enabled them and their community to retake their illegally seized farms back from the landgrabbers.

But the struggle continues. And Rede Social and other organizations continue to depend on our collective solidarity. That’s why, in the leadup to October’s anniversary, I’m asking for your support directly.

Can you commit to giving $10, $25, $50, or more in solidarity with these movements? Our Sustaining the Struggle campaign will allow peasants, farm workers, Indigenous People, the Quilombolas, and farm communities everywhere to continue organizing and building mighty movements of grassroots power.

Together, we're standing against massive greed for profit. We are standing up for the dignity and sustainability of life — for the Earth and all its people, for years to come.

In solidarity & gratitude, Chung-Wha Hong Executive Director