Earth, life and future: On the road to ICARRD
As part of the preparatory process for the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), the webinar “ Land, Life and Future: On the Road to ICARRD ” was held on Tuesday, February 10. It was conceived as a space for strategic and high-level dialogue between public institutions, academia and social movements around a central and urgent issue: agrarian reforms for the 21st century.
The panel included key figures in the agricultural debate at the regional and global levels:
– Itayosara Rojas , Advisor on environmental issues, representing Martha Carvajalino , Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Colombia
– Raquel Rizzi , Director of Programs of the Executive Secretariat of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming of Brazil, representing the Minister of the portfolio, Paulo Teixeira.
– Pablo Vommaro , Executive Director of CLACSO
– Jun Borras . International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam
– Bernardo Mançano Fernandes . Paulista State University, Brazil
– Manuel González de Molina . Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain
– Lia Pinheiro Barbosa . State University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil
– Julián Ariza Arias . University of the Republic, Uruguay / National University of Colombia
– Morgan Ody . La Via Campesina
– Mnqobi Ngubane . Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
Moderation by Jenniffer Vargas Reina , National University of Colombia
Opening the debate, Pablo Vommaro argued that "we are facing a polycrisis and a civilizational crisis that expresses the exhaustion of the prevailing order. It is also an era of contested transitions. From this position, and as a network of critical and transformative thought, we join the global call towards #ICARRD20."
He added: “We cannot approach agrarian reform solely as a technical issue or a matter of land distribution; it is fundamentally a political issue to halt systematic dispossession and violence. We need to reclaim the public sphere: to place the State and public policies at the center to rebuild ways of life and threatened biocultural heritage; comprehensive justice: understanding that agrarian justice is intertwined with climate, gender, racial, and social justice; land for those who work it: redistributing concentrated land ownership to guarantee fundamental rights. A special mention goes to rural youth, often forced to migrate due to extractive economies, but who today are key players in building evidence, proposals, and alternatives.”
He concluded with an invitation: "See you in Cartagena to debate the meaning of these transitions in the face of an extractive and predatory capitalism."
