{"id":1866,"date":"2021-01-18T07:25:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T13:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2021-02-07T10:02:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T16:02:17","slug":"family-farm-defenders-stands-in-solidarity-with-striking-indian-farmers-to-oppose-modis-neoliberal-corporate-agribusiness-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/?p=1866","title":{"rendered":"Family Farm Defenders Stands in Solidarity with Striking Indian Farmers to Oppose Modi\u2019s Neoliberal Corporate Agribusiness Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On this Jan. 18th<\/sup> 2021 as India celebrates National Women Farmers Day and the U.S. celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Family Farm Defenders wishes to express solidarity with our sisters and brothers in India as they continue their struggle for food sovereignty and economic justice. Little did we believe that when the Modi government decided to railroad through such regressive farm legislation amidst a global pandemic that this would lead to the largest strike in human history – now over 250 million strong \u2013 and provide such an inspiration to others all around the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Women have always shouldered the largest burden when it comes to feeding the world, and women of color in the global south remain the majority of the world\u2019s farmers today. In India women have also been at the forefront of this latest grassroots protest in the world\u2019s largest democracy. And for obvious reason. They will be the ones who will have to figure out how to sustain their family in the face of orchestrated commodity shortages and inflated food prices. They will be the ones left to defend their family\u2019s land from contract forfeiture in the wake of so many farmer suicides and mounting rural debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over half of India\u2019s 1.3 billion people depend upon agriculture for their livelihood, and of those 85% farm under two acres and earn less than $1400 per year. Yet, the Modi government has staged a David versus Goliath fight by undermining access to basic essentials and expecting small farmers, low wage workers, and poor consumers to \u201cnegotiate\u201d with massive corporate middlemen in a rigged market. If this sounds familiar it is because U.S. farmers, workers, and consumers have been engaged in a similar struggle to demand a parity price, living wages, and anti-trust action against elite corporate interests for well over a century now. In fact, this latest attempt to undermine the viability and autonomy of India\u2019s smallscale producers reflects the same \u201cget big or get out\u201d agenda that has been used so effectively for so long to cripple U.S. family farmers and then exported elsewhere with devastating consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The neoliberal \u201cfree trade\u201d agenda of the White House \u2013 under both Democratic and Republican administrations \u2013 has long been to force India to lift restrictions on food imports and pave the way for dumping, while also weakening environmental restrictions on toxic agrochemicals and enforcing the patent claims of biotech companies. Grassroots resistance has managed to safeguard the people of India from many of these threats for quite sometime, but one can never let down one\u2019s guard as the dangerously brittle and exploitative state of today\u2019s U.S. food\/farm system clearly demonstrates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one \u2013 whether in the U.S. or India \u2013 should be compelled to consume unhealthy and objectionable rBGH-induced dairy products or chicken raised on \u201cMad Cow\u201d byproducts like blood\/bone meal and livestock manure. No one \u2013 whether in the U.S. or India – should end up exposed to carcinogenic pesticides like Bayer\/Monsanto\u2019s glyphosate without their knowledge and full product liability. No one \u2013 whether in the U.S. or India \u2013 should be \u201ccriminalized\u201d for saving their own seed or growing their own medicine free of corporate intellectual property right claims. No one \u2013 whether in the U.S. or India \u2013 should be forced to \u201cchoose\u201d between Walmart\/Amazon as their only retail option to obtain food or other basic needs whether in-person or on-line. These are are all gross violations of food sovereignty and basic human freedom that must be opposed no matter where one lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Family Farm Defenders will never give up in our effort to bring about a more peaceful, just, and equitable world in which all people – and the earth itself \u2013 are treated with dignity and respect. We hope that our statement of solidarity will offer courage and strength to our farmer friends in India as they continue their own epic protest in this historic moment. As our food sovereignty allies with La Via Campesina would proclaim: \u201cGlobalize the Struggle and Globalize Hope!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this Jan. 18th 2021 as India celebrates National Women Farmers Day and the U.S. celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Family Farm Defenders wishes to express solidarity with our sisters and brothers in India as they continue their struggle … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foodsovereignty","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1871,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions\/1871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}