wfn.org | Agricultural Missions Hold Education for Rural Justice Tour

["Nat'l Council of Churches" <nccc_usa@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of Churches
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252/2227
NCC10/1/02 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AGRICULTURAL MISSIONS HOLDS EDUCATION FOR RURAL JUSTICE TOUR

Oct. 1, 2002, NEW YORK CITY - Advocates for family farmers and farmworkers
in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and the United States are engaged in a 20-day
Education for Rural Justice Tour that is seeking to broaden the movement
for sustainable local agricultural economies and practices.

Their international struggle against rural poverty and the adverse effects
of corporate-led globalization is rooted in the needs and aspirations of
millions of ordinary people.

For example, for Brazils 4.8 million landless rural people, struggling to
survive on the $2 or less that they can earn as day laborers, it means
getting their own parcel of land big enough to grow enough to eat three
times a day and sell a bit of surplus, says Salete Carollo, veteran activist
and organizer of the Movimento Sem Terra (MST).

Founded 18 years ago, MST successfully has relocated 300,000 landless
families on land.  To learn more, see www.mstbrazil.org
<http://www.mstbrazil.org>

For Mexican family farmers in a corridor from Puebla, Mexico, to Panama,
it means resisting the implementation of Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), which
seeks to buy them out and construct a series of massive industrial
development corridors, says Antonio Valenzuela of the group Indigenous
Without Borders.

Most of the family farmers in the Plan Puebla Panama corridor consider
themselves to be members of indigenous groups, Valenzuela said.  Their
communal land holdings are threatened by Plan Puebla Panama.  Indigenous
people in Mexico number 24 million, he said, and until recently provided 80
percent of the domestically consumed maize.

When farmers are dislocated, to survive they take jobs in the new factories
at sweatshop wages, Valenzuela said.  If they organize and demand a living
wage, the factory moves overseas.  Many formerly self-sufficient family
farmers end up squatting in cardboard shacks in Mexico City and begging in
the streets.  Valenzuelas movement has helped two rural villages resist
the takeover of their land.  For more information, see www.asej.org
<http://www.asej.org>

Ms. Carollo and Mr. Valenzuela - along with Santiago Obispo, a Venezuelan
indigenous and campesino organizer - are touring 10 U.S. states under the
auspices of Agricultural Missions, Inc., an ecumenical organization that
accompanies rural peoples in their efforts to address the structural causes
of impoverishment and injustice in their communities.

On the groups itinerary Sept. 18-Oct. 10: meetings with farmers and
fieldworkers; colleges, universities and theological seminaries; ecumenical
and denominational groups including local churches, and with grassroots
activists for sustainable agricultural economies and practices.  The groups
tour covers New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Ohio,
Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Representatives of U.S. rural and urban movements are joining these
presenters at stops along the way.  For example, in New York City, Noelle
Damico joined them to talk about a boycott of Taco Bell - a major purchaser
of tomatoes grown in Southwest Florida, where fieldworkers earn about $50
for every two tons of tomatoes they pick - a days work.  The United Church
of Christ and Presbyterian Church (USA) have endorsed the boycott.  For more
information, see www.ciw-online.org <http://www.ciw-online.org> or
www.pcusa.org/boycott/ <http://www.pcusa.org/boycott/>

To learn more about Agricultural Missions, the tour and the issues, contact
Stephen Bartlett, Latin America Liaison for Agricultural Missions:
stephen@ncccusa.org <mailto:stephen@ncccusa.org> ; 502-894-9308 or
212-870-2553.  And visit www.agriculturalmissions.org
<http://www.agriculturalmissions.org>

-end-