BUILDING A EUROPEAN MOVEMENT FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

CALL TO NYELENI EUROPE FORUM AND CAMP, AUGUST

2011, AUSTRIA

We, the organizers of the International Nyeleni Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali in 2007

(http://www.nyeleni.org/?lang=en&lang_fixe=ok) , call on all those who resist and struggle throughout

Europe to join us in the construction of a European movement for Food Sovereignty.

On the 16th - 21st August 2011 in Krems, Austria we hope to bring together a mass meeting of groups,

unions, associations and collectives of farmers, students, activists, ecologists, agricultural workers and

landless youth and any others who are working for food sovereignty in Europe and in the world.

Europe has become integrated into an unsustainable global food system controlled by corporate interests

and based on environmental degradation, the exploitation of resources of other peoples and social and

economic inequality - facilitated through the impunity of transnational corporations and financial

markets. The consequences of this model are visible everywhere in our food and agricultural systems and

policies.

It is time to change the framework of European agricultural policies from those based on WTO rules to

those based on people's food sovereignty. A new food and agricultural policy for Europe should be based

on re-localizing agricultural production, supporting small producers and facilitating access to land for new

farmers and collectives, while challenging the dominance of industry and private interests in the

production, transformation and distribution of food for European citizens.

Across Europe people are organizing from the grassroots to take back control of their food and

agricultural systems. These forces of resistance make up a wealth of experiences which is still vastly

dispersed, ignored, hidden and sometimes clandestine.

It is time for these forces to come to the fore and build a new way of organizing our food systems - from

the seeds in the fields to the food on our plates - which will nurture the biodiversity, environment and

local cultures and traditions of our regions, as well as reversing the disappearance of European food

producers.

The Nyeleni Europe Forum in Austria should act as a catalyst for this, opening a space in Europe to define

the struggles and strategies necessary in order to create a movement for Food Sovereignty which can

challenge the dominant forces of production and consumption present in today's society.

In the knowledge that the road is as important as the destination, we call on organizations and groups in

every state, region, province and county to come together and define their vision of food sovereignty for

Europe, based on the principles defined at Nyeleni forum in 2007, and above all to participate in the

organization of the forum itself.

Whoever you are, if you are interested in participating, please contact: nyelenieurope2011@gmail.com

More information on the objectives of the Nyeleni Forum in Mali in 2007:

http://www.nyeleni.org/spip.php?article15