[Interview] Morgan Ody - Insights from Via Campesina [English]

For the second time I speak to Morgan Ody, farmer from Brittany in
Western France and the current coordinator of Via Campesina: The
global alliance of small scale farmers or peasants that the AbL is
part of. I asked Morgan for this interview because I find it
striking how big and influential Via Campesina is but how little
people know about it. So I asked her about her work, what she has
done since our last conversation in September, about the issues
that they worked on in that time, and especially about Via
Campesinas most recent campaign on Free Trade. In the first half,
we talked about Via Campesina as a peace movement, how they deal
with the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, in Sudan and Kongo and with
militant gangs in Mali and Haiti. We talked about the important
work on peasant feminism that comes from the work done by the
member organisations in Latin America and is slowly reaching the
other countries. And we talked about the value of international
exchange. In the second half, we moved to a topic that is currently
close to my heart: Free Trade and Food Sovereignty. These are the
issues why Via Campesina was created in the first place. Peasant
worldwide realised that they need to ally on a global scale because
the free trade is putting them into competition with each other and
destroying peasant existences everywhere. Today, Via Campesina is
rediscovering its founding-issue and is launching a long-term
campaign on replacing the World Trade Organisation.