Author: fredsaxo

Global land grab highlights growing inequality

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Massive tracts of land in the Global South are being bought up by international investors and ultra-rich corporations, fueling growing inequality – part of a wider global trend of wealth transfers away from the poor and working people.

The report from FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution, puts the spotlight on the world’s ten largest transnational landowners – who together control 404,457 km², an area the size of Japan.

This is part of a global land rush. Since 2000, corporations and financial investors have acquired an estimated 65 million hectares of land – twice the size of Germany. Today, 70 percent of global farmland is controlled by the largest 1 percent of giant industrial-scale farms.

Forced displacements

This concentration has grave implications for food security, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion smallholder farmers and 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people, most of whom rely on agriculture for survival. It is also driving violence, forced evictions, and environmental destruction while also contributing significantly to climate change.

Virtually all the top global landowners named in the report have been implicated in reports of forced displacements, environmental destruction, and violence against communities.

One of the main players is the US pension fund TIAA, which has acquired 61,000 hectares in Brazil’s Cerrado region, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas. In the Cerrado, approximately half of the land has been converted into tree plantations, large agro-industrial monocultures, and pastures for cattle production — amid reports of violent land grabs, deforestation and environmental destruction which already shows signs of impacting the climate.

TIAA almost quadrupled its global landholdings between 2012 and 2023 — from 328,200 hectares to 1.2 million hectares.

Inequality

Land concentration undermines state sovereignty and peoples’ self-determination, with distant corporations controlling vast tracts of land across multiple jurisdictions.

The industrial-scale monocropping, often carried out on this land, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem destruction, preventing just transitions to more equitable and sustainable food systems and economic models.

These developments reflect a broader global trend of rising inequality and wealth concentration. Since the mid-1990s, the richest 1% of the world’s population has captured 38% of all additional accumulated wealth, while the poorest 50% have received only 2%.  An estimated 3.6 billion people, or 44% of the world population, now live on less than US$ 6.85 a day, below the threshold for a dignified life.

Because land grabbing is largely driven by global capital and the accumulation of land across jurisdictions by transnational corporations and financial entities, international cooperation is essential. The upcoming International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Colombia early next year offers a critical opportunity for governments to agree on measures that end land grabbing, reverse land concentration, and ensure broad and sustainable distribution of natural resources.

In a world facing intersecting crises – from climate breakdown and food insecurity to entrenched poverty and social inequality – and amid reconfiguration of the global balance of power, now is the time to move away from neoliberal policies that have benefited very few, and to create a more just and sustainable global future for all.

Watch an expert panel discussion on the report here:

For more information or media interviews please contact Anisa Widyasari anisa@focusweb.org or Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.org.

Solidarity not exploitation: we stand with food workers from farm to table

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At the beginning of May, on International Workers’ Day, we celebrate the strength and sacrifices of workers all over the world. But there are workers who are persistently overlooked – the millions who labour to produce, process and serve people their food, most of whom are in the informal economy – who we focus on in this edition of Supermarket Watch.

Whether we are talking about peasant farmers in Peru, street vendors in Zimbabwe or gig workers delivering food in India, workers across the food system – in production, processing, distribution or preparation – are essential for bringing food to people's tables and yet they remain among the most exploited workers in the world.

 
Peasants and landless farmers are often forcefully removed from ancestral lands by industrial agriculture or pushed out due to climate change and eco-destruction and must struggle to survive. Many migrate to become underpaid and undocumented workers in the agriculture industry of wealthier countries. These are the unseen workers who pick fruits, harvest vegetables, and pack meats for far away consumers — often with no healthcare, legal protection, or right to unionise.
 
In cities, street and market vendors, many of whom are women, face harassment and violence on a daily basis. They provide nutritious and accessible food to low-income communities but are still not recognised as workers providing essential services and typically have no access to any social protections.
 
Then we have the food delivery workers, dependent on a platform economy governed by algorithms that promises freedom and efficiency but only offers them insecurity, arbitrary penalties and meagre pay.
 
Food connects us all, but the people producing and supplying it are often rendered invisible. Their labour is considered “unskilled,” their struggles are ignored, and their organising is suppressed. In the month when we celebrate International Workers’ Day, we must own up to the human cost of our increasingly corporatised, exploitative and profoundly unequal food system. Every meal is made possible by workers whose rights — to rest, to organise, to live with dignity — are too often denied. The vast majority of food workers in the global South, and many in the global North, don't have access to basic social protections. With retirement pensions, for instance, after decades of hard work, farmers, fishers, farmworkers and food vendors across nearly the entire global South are either completely without a pension or only get paid a pittance.
 
Food sovereignty cannot be dissociated from labour justice. That means fair wages, healthy and safe working conditions, social protection and collective bargaining. For the millions of workers in the informal economy, it also means ensuring their rights to full legal and social protections and participation in policy-making. This is possible to do, and, for instance, there are examples out there already of global South countries where governments, usually pushed by strong social movements, have enacted public pension systems designed to provide a dignified retirement for small farmers and their families. At the upcoming 113th International Labour Conference in Geneva, governments, workers and employers the world over will be discussing labour standards for both those in the informal economy and those in the platform economy. It is crucial that the needs and interests of food workers, in all their diversity, are front-and-centre in these discussions. 
 
Let's fight together for a food system rooted in solidarity, not exploitation!
 
Read the latest issue here.
 
For more information contact Laura Michéle michele@fian.org
 

Supermarket Watch supports local food struggles

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Supermarket Watch began a decade ago at a time when supermarkets and convenience store chains were expanding faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world and rapidly changing the face of Asian food markets. They undermined the region's long tradition of fresh food markets, which provide consumers everywhere in Asia with vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and all kinds of healthy, prepared foods, and were supported by government policies to support that growth.

The supermarketisation of food markets is now well advanced in the Americas and Europe, and is  slowly spreading in Africa, from South Africa and a few countries in North Africa to the rest of the continent, prompting an expansion of this bulletin's scope by its editors and authors in GRAIN, FIAN International and StreetNet International.

Supermarkets do not just push out traditional, local markets. They have dramatic impacts on people's diets and the ways in which foods are produced. They marginalize locally produced food and encourage the consumption of ultra-processed “food products”. In countries such as Mexico, where supermarkets and convenience stores have taken over food markets, we see a paradox where millions of people suffer from hunger or malnutrition while at the same time millions of others are affected by obesity, diabetes and other food-related illnesses.

Fortunately, there is a growing, strong resistance to this supermarket expansion. People in different places around the world are organizing to defend food distribution systems and local markets that are rooted in the community. They are taking actions against laws and regulations that undermine the presence of fresh food markets and harass and criminalize street and market vendors. Public markets that were once a decentralized space for street and market traders, have become battlegrounds for economic justice and livelihood.

In this context, we believe it is critical to share information emanating from the struggles of small farmers and food producers, street and market vendors, and cross-border traders around the world and to deepen connections between these struggles to help foster a global movement.

We hope the bulletin will continue to serve as a tool for social movements in defense of food sovereignty!

Read the latest issue here.

For more information contact Laura Michéle michele@fian.org

International community must stop weaponization of food and starvation in Gaza

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By blocking 116,000 metric tonnes of food at its border with Gaza – enough to provide basic rations for one million people for four months – Israel and its supporters violate their obligation to respect the right to food for the Palestinian population, impeding access to adequate food needed for survival and a life of dignity.

No one in Gaza has access to sufficient food and water. Some, including young children, have already starved to death with thousands facing acute malnutrition. Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure and crops have been decimated, and agricultural systems have almost collapsed. Severe fuel restrictions have crippled water infrastructure and electricity supply, leaving only limited power from solar panels and generators.

Food prices in the Gaza Strip have surged by 1,400 percent since the culmination of the last ceasefire, making it nearly impossible for affected communities to secure affordable food. This crisis impacts not only the current population but also severely threatens future generations’ health and other related rights.

Currently, residents in Gaza rely primarily on canned vegetables, rice, pasta, and lentils, as staples like meat, milk, cheese, and fruit have all but disappeared. The result is a significant deficiency in both the quantity and quality of food needed to fulfill their right to adequate food and nutrition. Children are going to bed starving, according to the UN.

This dire escalation stems not only from recent hostilities but also from Israeli occupation, systemic oppression and longstanding human rights violations of the Palestinian people. These include the destruction of food and health infrastructure, restricting water supplies, environmental destruction and other violations of economic, social, and cultural rights – as well as the right to self-determination. These ongoing violations have precipitated a food and health catastrophe that the international community has allowed to persist, breaching its obligations to ensure the right to food within and beyond their borders and for present and future generations.

The international community must act to redress this violation, adopting all necessary measures to prevent the weaponization of food and uphold the rights of the people in Gaza. States should immediately cease any support — be it military, economic, or political — to Israel and the transnational corporations complicit in this ongoing genocide.

In the short term, nations are urged to deploy diplomatic efforts to facilitate the delivery of food supplies currently blocked at the border. However, these measures alone are far from sufficient. The international community must restore local food systems and infrastructure in Gaza, respect the Palestinian’s right to self-determination and ensure access to food, remedy and justice. It is impossible to realize human rights and exercise food sovereignty in the context of settler colonialism and occupation.

The establishment of the Hague Group is a positive step towards addressing this crisis, but additional states must join this initiative and immediately take effective actions to ensure justice and peace for the Palestinian people.

For more information or media queries contact Ana María Suárez Franco: suarez-franco@fian.org

 

 

International Day of Peasant Struggles: Joint Statement of Peasant and Solidarity Organizations

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Land grabbing continues to intensify, driven by agribusiness, mining, energy projects, and so-called “development” plans. Forests and ancestral lands are cleared, our territories are converted into commercial sites, and water sources are privatized – all to make way for profit-driven investments.

When peasants resist, they are met with repression. They are harassed, surveilled, and falsely labeled as “anti-development” and enemies of the state. Many are imprisoned on fabricated charges. Others never return home. Their right to organize is under attack and their communities live in fear. Meanwhile, those who destroy the land and violate human rights enjoy protection, and are even rewarded.

This is a systematic effort to dismantle resistance, silence dissent, and clear the way for capital accumulation. And yet, peasants continue to rise. They organize, resist, and assert their right to land, food, and life with dignity.

On this day, we honor the farmers of Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Barangay Sumalo (SANAMABASU) Hermosa, Bataan for their courage. Since 2009, the organization has been tirelessly defending their land against Litton & Co., Inc and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC)’s attempt to convert it into industrial use, leading to their criminalization by the corporation. Although the farmers, charged with non-bailable offenses, were released on bail on January 8, 2025, the community now faces renewed repression, as RDC has filed ejectment cases to displace them from their homes and farmlands.

On September 16, 2024, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council (3 Special Rapporteurs and 2 Working Groups) sent letters to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and to Litton & Co., Inc. and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC). Both letters highlighted significant human rights concerns regarding the situation in the community. Key issues included forced evictions, housing demolitions, restricted access to cultivated land, criminalization, and the prohibition of agricultural activities.

In a response dated January 16, 2025, RDC refuted the allegations. They asserted that the land in question was unsuitable for agriculture, claiming that no legitimate farmers were tilling it. They accused certain community members of exploiting the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for personal gain and described their actions as illegal. RDC defended its eviction efforts as lawful, claiming that they are targeting only those obstructing development plans.

Meanwhile, the response from the government of the Philippines dated January 23, 2025 claimed that the syndicated estafa case filed against the farmers “have already been dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence.” They also laid down some other efforts of the government on agrarian reform. However, this is untrue as farmers continue to attend court hearings in the two pending cases of syndicated estafa cases. 

On January 28, 2025, the House Committee on Agrarian Reform conducted a Congressional inquiry on the criminalization and harassment faced by farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the country. Despite this being a positive development, the Congress is now in session break until June to give leeway for the upcoming elections in May. This means that another lobbying effort would be needed in the next Congress starting July, as a new set of representatives will occupy the Congressional seats.

With these developments, we reaffirm our commitment to their cause and to all farmers facing the same dilemma. We raise our voices in unity to demand:

  1. The implementation of agrarian reform and the redistribution of land to those who till it;
  2. The protection of ancestral domains and Indigenous territories;
  3. An end to land grabbing and corporate-led development aggression;
  4. The repeal of laws and policies that favor corporations over communities;
  5. Justice for victims of land-related killings, arrests, and harassment;
  6. An end to the criminalization, militarization, and red-tagging of peasant leaders and advocates;
  7. The recognition and protection of the rights of peasants, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP); and
  8. Food sovereignty, not corporate-controlled food systems.

We honor those who have fallen, those imprisoned for defending the land, and those who continue to fight in the face of threats and fear. Your courage lives on in every seed planted, every barricade built, every piece of land reclaimed, and every collective struggle for justice won.

Land to the tillers. Justice for the oppressed.

Long live peasant resistance!

Signed: 

Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN), Philippines

Anti-jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS) Odisha, India

Bangladesh Food Security Network- KHANI, Bangladesh

Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM)

Claudio Schuftan, PHM and WPHNA

Coastal Action Network (CAN), India

Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO), Nepal

FIAN Austria

FIAN Indonesia

FIAN International

FIAN Nepal

FIAN Sri Lanka

FIAN Switzerland

Focus on the Global South

Gaza Urban & Peri-urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP), Gaza, Palestine  

Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network

Lanka Organic Agricultural Movement (LOAM), Sri Lanka

National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Sri Lanka

Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, Pakistan 

Participatory Research & Action Network- PRAAN, Bangladesh

Prof. Dr. Anne C Bellows, Syracuse University, USA

Seed and Knowledge Initiative (SKI)

UBINIG, Bangladesh

Youth's Forum for Protection of Human Rights, Manipur, India  

Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB)

For more information please contact Yifang Slot-Tang: Slot-Tang@fian.org

FIAN's road ahead in global struggle for the right to food

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Ana Maria became secretary general of FIAN International earlier this year, taking over from Sofía Monsalve whose long tenure transformed the organization, linking its mission to critical global issues from climate change to digitalization, financialization, conflict and care work.

She has extensive experience of international advocacy, including more than two decades at FIAN International, most recently serving as the organization’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva. 

How do you see your role as FIAN secretary general?

I see my role as providing strategic leadership to advance the right to food and nutrition globally in line with FIAN’s strategic plan. Over 23 years, I have learned from peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fishers, scholars, policymakers, and others.

I will use all those learnings, following the inspiration of Sofía Monsalve, our former secretary general, to provide strategic leadership to the organization in tackling threats to the right to food. This includes revealing false solutions in the context of food systems transformation and just transitions and amplifying people’s solutions such as agroecology and food sovereignty.

In times of uncertain geopolitical change, my role also consists of leading our organization to create a critical mass that resists, denounces, provides alternatives and strengthens collective advocacy. I also aim to guide FIAN so we continue accompanying the defense of communities affected by systemic human rights violations – including through our case work and deepening ties with social movements, particularly youth, to challenge inequalities in food systems.

What are the main challenges ahead and how will FIAN face them?

Amid multiple global crises — climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, wars, and drug trafficking — that deepen hunger, poverty, and inequality, we face an additional challenge: the rise of authoritarian governments dismantling public institutions, prioritizing profit over people and polarizing societies. These movements threaten the post-war consensus enshrined in the UN Charter: peace, human rights, and social progress, and hinder progress toward fair, healthy and sustainable food systems and just transitions.

Our newly adopted strategic plan provides clear goals to respond to these challenges within FIAN’s mandate. With its six thematic struggles and eight strategic tools, it offers a roadmap for action.

What difference can FIAN make in the global struggle for the right to food?

For almost 40 years, FIAN has been deeply committed to advancing people’s struggles for the right to food, addressing oppression by states and non-state actors and tackling power imbalances. What sets FIAN apart is its case work – advocating with communities for their right to food, while bridging local struggles to global policies and governance.

FIAN’s facilitation skills strengthen the right-to-food movement, connecting diverse actors across regions and sectors while fostering solidarity and collective power. This work is crucial for driving change, especially under authoritarian regimes, as recognized by allies and sections. Facilitating in such a diverse ecosystem requires openness to learn from all actors equally, critical analysis of mainstream solutions, and strategic dialogue coordination. Though often invisible, the facilitation work we do is essential for building bridges and strengthening collective action in environments that respect and value diversity.

Our persistence, capacity to collaborate with others, creativity, and the commitment of each person engaged in FIAN, continue to be invaluable for strengthening the right to food movement and achieving transformative change worldwide.

How optimistic are you about the prospects of advancing the right to food in the current climate?

Despite the challenges, there is much to celebrate: the 20th anniversary of the UN Right to Food Guidelines saw progress in implementation. FIAN Colombia secured constitutional recognition of the right to food, Ecuador’s peasants won landmark cases on the right to land and Uganda saw reduced military violence against fishers after years of advocacy. Our efforts, alongside many allies, to increase corporate accountability are bearing fruit, with steps toward a binding instrument to address the harms of Big Food, Big Tech, Big Agro and major financial actors.

I also believe that progress in recognizing the human rights of future generations offers new avenues to combat environmental crises and promote justice. And our work on food care is highlighting important paths for gender equity and dismantling patriarchal practices that harm women and LGBTQIA+.

These steps, though small, represent meaningful progress. Walking them in solidarity brings us closer to a world where food systems prioritize people and the planet over corporate interests.

For more information please contact Ana Maria Suarez Franco: suarez-franco@fian.org

 

FIAN Blog: The struggle against the pseudo food making us and our planet sick

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While many transnational corporations promote themselves as part of the solution to hunger, malnutrition and the environmental crises, civil society and social movements around the world are protesting against their increasing domination and capture of food governance spaces.

Corporate lobbying of authorities and takeovers of international institutions are making it harder to hold them to account.  

Corporate tactics

The agri-food giants which dominate our food systems use different tactics – including sponsoring, researchers, media and UN fora – to influence parliaments, governments and courts to hamper better regulation of UPFs and information to enable people to choose real, nutritious food.

Examples include blocking laws establishing front-of-package labels to warn people about harmful products, fighting laws to tax sweetened beverages that aim to reduce consumption and opposing efforts to foster access to real food and drinking water. This lobbying causes immense public health costs with as much as 60 percent of household food budgets going toward this junk food in many countries – notably in poorer communities worldwide.

It is time for governments to comply with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the comprehensive legal framework on the right to food and nutrition. They must protect public interests over private profits by introducing adequate measures to curb corporate interference.

Curbing corporate power

Such measures should include regulations blocking companies with vested commercial interests from participating in food regulatory and policy processes along the lines of the UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It is also important to ensure the effective participation of civil society – notably groups affected by hunger and malnutrition – in food governance spaces, not only to discuss but also to decide. 

Without clear rules on corporate accountability and for civil society participation, we will not be able to reverse a trend that will have a massive toll on the health and lives of millions of people and on nature and biodiversity today and in the future.  

Civil society activists, movements and everyone concerned about food can raise their voice to reject corporate capture and industry-promoted food policies and instead advocate for real solutions to healthy and sustainable eating.

Bottom-up solution

Agroecology provides a bottom-up solution from peasants and small hold farmers that is already in place in many communities. This approach contributes to reducing pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change – as well as ensuring the availability of real food that actually nourishes people and is affordable for all.

As corporations face the new tariff war set in motion by the US president, they will use all available tools to protect their interests. Civil society and everyone who cares for people and the planet must join forces to defend the public interest, human dignity and the environment. United we can work to hold our authorities accountable for respecting everyone’s right to food, health and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

For more information, please contact FIAN International Secretary General Ana Maria Suarez Franco suarez-franco@fian.org

UPR: Malawi must protect Phanga village community

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The report builds on the previous report submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and highlights the current situation of the affected community members who have returned to Phanga village in the central Malawi district of Dedza a decade after they were forcefully evicted.

The community members’ land was sold to Crown Plantations, a Southern African company, but was never exploited by the company and was subsequently sold by village chiefs to several new owners. The affected community members contest these transactions and claim they are the original owners, under traditional customary ownership rules.

“Community members in Phanga village, have shown the courage to defend their human rights by deciding to retake their land and defend it,” says Tobias Jere, Project manager at the Center for Social Concern.

One of the key recommendations provided by the UN ESCR Committee requires the State of Malawi to:

“Accelerate the implementation of comprehensive land titling and registration systems to secure titles for individual and communal landowners, promptly resolve overlapping claims through transparent mechanisms, and pay special attention to Phanga village community members in Dedza district.”

Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International says it is crucial that the Malawi state implements the UN ESCR Committee recommendation to ensure that the community members in Phanga village are adequately compensated.

“They must be protected from any further forced evictions and their customary rights over their land must be protected,” he adds.

Read the full UPR parallel report on Malawi here.

For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

Nyéléni process: Waves of resistance. Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

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In a rapidly changing world, beset by war and billionaire oligarchs, fishing livelihoods remain ignored in policy discussions. US President Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ agenda, worldwide extractivism, neo-protectionist nature enclosure through 30by30 (Global Biodiversity Framework), government-backed aquaculture expansion, and profit-driven mega projects continue eroding fisher peoples’ territories and livelihoods.

The rise of the radical right has led some governments to reduce or eliminate development aid,  and philanthropy holds greater sway in determining what and who gets support, further deteriorating the funding landscape. As NGOs and fisher movements increasingly rely on funding from philanthropy, this can lead to co-optation of some organizations’ political agendas and create division between those maintaining food sovereignty principles and those following funder-directed focuses like 30by30, ‘blue foods’ and ‘blue transformations’[1].

Fisher movements must unite to discuss political positions and tactics. Following the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty’s (IPC) decision to avoid endorsing the UN Food Systems Summit, similar positions may be needed on other imposed agendas. Fisher movements need to set their own agenda, and actively shape the direction of the larger food sovereignty movement. The Nyéléni Global Forum in September 2025 in Sri Lanka offers such an opportunity: to put fisheries on the agenda, build solidarity with other small food producers, food workers and climate movements, and advance the food sovereignty struggle.

FIAN International, GRAIN, IPC working group on fisheries, TNI, WFF, WFFP

Read the Nyeleni Newsletter No.52 here or download

Illustration : Rosine Nsimire (Alliance pour la vie), Alessandro Musetta – Agathe, the matriarch above the water is a mixed-media digital publication documenting the experiences of artisanal fisherwomen from Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

FIAN International annual report looks back on 2024

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FIAN’s latest annual report takes stock of some of the main struggles we are engaged in around the world for the right to food and nutrition.

During 2024, FIAN joined forces with grassroots groups and international alliances to oppose the ongoing weaponization of food, a key driver of global hunger, notably in Palestine. We also began new research on the failure of the international community to adequately respond to famines in conflict areas.

The sea is a major source of nutrition for many. Working with local partners, FIAN helped to expose the appropriation of aquaculture affecting fisher peoples and coastal communities in Tamil Nadu, India. We also supported UN advocacy led by the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, amplifying grassroots demands for recognition of fisher peoples and coastal communities, asserting their rights to land, water, and fisheries.

We marked the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Right to Food Guidelines in June with allies in the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRTFN) calling on governments to incorporate the right to food into national legislation, regulations, policies and programs.

We have been working for some time with the feminist school of the Latin American Alliance for Food Sovereignty and in 2024 we published a booklet showcasing their experiences which aims to be a tool to inspire others to action. The school builds bridges across generations and reveals the hidden contributions of women to local economies, highlighting their vital role in food production and care and motivating them to take more power in decision making.

At COP 29, we called for people-led solutions and a just transition to agroecology and sounded the alarm on the socioeconomic and environmental risks of digitalized and financialized carbon markets in debates around the topic in the UN.

We joined forces with allies to advocate for strong corporate accountability for human rights and environmental harm – and for an end to corporate capture of the UN. This included denouncing new attempts to derail negotiations on a binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations.

FIAN’s International Council, which comprises 19 national sections, met in Portugal at the end of the year and adopted a new Strategic Plan to guide our global work until 2030.

The great work of our national Sections continued to be a major source of inspiration.

For example, FIAN Uganda reported a marked decrease in military violence against fisher people following years of grassroots activism and campaigning. And we celebrated with FIAN Colombia the culmination of more than a decade of advocacy work which contributed to a groundbreaking constitutional amendment mandating the state to guarantee the human right to adequate food.

We look forward to many more positive examples like these in the year ahead, as we join forces with FIAN Sections and our allies around the world fighting for a global transition to agroecology, food sovereignty and everyone’s right to food and nutrition.

Download the annual report here.