Via Campesina with Samir Joubran
Via Campesina
Food for the stomach, food for the mind. These are the two concepts the CD compilation “Via Campesina” attempts to bridge. Because almost 15% of
the world population is chronically hungry and someone dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds (24,000 daily), the issue of food has become a moral issue
shared by all, musicians included.
Food for all - particularly those who produce it, - will be debated in Mali during the February 2007 World Forum for Food Sovereignty. The concept of
food sovereignty was coined ten years ago by Via Campesina, an autonomous international movement coordinating peasant organisations worldwide.
Three-quarters of the 30 million people who die of hunger annually are peasants. They are the first victims of multinationals and neo-liberal policies
imposed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
One of the principal reasons behind the devastation of rural communities has been the industrialisation and homogenisation of species and varieties
planted. Via Campesina calls on more food production for domestic and local markets, based on systems that are “diversified and agro-ecologically
based”. It denounces the the US-led drive to patent seeds, a policy that could destroy the “essential” genetic diversity of plants and
animals.
In many ways such rallying calls are transposable to the world of music. Take-overs by music multinationals are reducing the diversity on offer, and
neo-liberal market policies are forcing dozens of small independent labels to close down. The latest victim is the Paris-based Night & Day label
that Maggie Docherty ran so astutely for 14 years. “Food sovereignty and cultural diversity go together,” insists the Daqui label director Patrick
Lavaud. He is responsible for this gripping compilation that unites 17 artists from all horizons. “Defending peasant farming…also comes down to
promoting their languages and local culture as well as cultural variety everywhere in the world.”
Lavaud allied himself with the charismatic farmer/politician José Bové for this September release that alternates songs and short snippets of
speeches and demonstrations. The artists have all performed at one of France’s most compelling summer events, the Langon Nuits Atypiques Festival.
They share the same conception of “a brotherly and united world,” claims Lavaud, although it is hard to fathom the incorporation of people like
Emir Kusturica in this light. Outstanding contributions by Fao-Gasy (Madagascar), Luzmila Carpio (Bolivia), Samir Joubran (Palestine) and Djiguiya are
the highlights of a delightful musical feast by the festival’s Daqui label.
Variety in music and plant species has plummeted over the last 50 years. While statistics on music diversity are hard to come by, those on cultivated
crops are well-documented. Since the Fifties, local plant varieties have fallen from 81% of production to only 5% (FAO 1996, 1998). The introduction
of “improved” species has caused huge genetic erosion that future generations will inevitably rue. This compilation is a timely reminder of the
ticking bomb we are sitting on. People’s sovereignty over what they eat and listen to is an absolute right, a right that Mondomix defends with
passion. This is why we support this World Forum for Food Sovereignty, nicknamed Nyéléni 2007, and hope to be present at the side of the activists
and musicians in Mali come February.
September 2006
Daniel Brown
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