DAY OF THE LANDLESS | <\/strong>MARCH 29, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n This year, the Asian Peasant Coalition reaffirms its anti-imperialist position and the centrality of the peasant struggle for land, food, and justice in achieving sustainable agriculture and food for all. The APC recognizes the clear onslaught of imperialism in its many forms in the Global South, particularly in the sector of peasants, farmers, farmworkers, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, rural women, rural youth and children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The past year has once more recorded massive grievances against the Global North, especially the imperialist US \u2013 from its brewing of wars and militarism to the expanding corporate and private capture of the world\u2019s resources such as land, water, and even data in the guise of climate action.<\/span><\/p>\n Asserting its political power amid the decline of its global hegemony, the US backed Israel\u2019s genocidal war against the Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Yemenis. It has also set its sights in the Asia Pacific, with the <\/span>Indo-Pacific Strategy<\/span><\/a> priming the region for war against China with ally states by building its military bases, clinching security agreements and military partnerships that embolden \u201ccounter-insurgency\u201d programs, and holding big war exercises.<\/span><\/p>\n A major component of imperialist expansion and capture of communities and food systems is facilitated through technology, greenwashing, and supposed \u201ccarbon-offsetting\u201d practices \u2013 neoliberal solutions that put corporations as fundamental and on leading duty for climate change mitigation and adaptation. These so-called \u201csustainable\u201d and \u201csmarter alternatives\u201d that imperialists and their corporations long campaign and promote are robbing small farmers and rural communities of their land and resources, preserving the current capitalist mode of production in agriculture. Such has been the case in <\/span>Africa<\/span><\/a>, with governments pledging 1.2 billion hectares of land for \u201cgreen grabs\u201d staged as climate initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n Corporate concentration of resources in the food systems \u2013 from production, marketing and distribution, to how consumption is facilitated \u2013 is further enabled by digitalization that treats land and resources as immaterial data. With only four to six agri-business TNCs dominating across resources (from seeds, agrochemicals, livestock genetics, synthetic fertilizers, farm machinery, animal pharmaceuticals, commodity traders, food processing, retail and food delivery), comes the unmistakable influence on development that attune the public to corporate soft power.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Governments complicit to advances of agricultural privatization convert land use from self-sustaining food production to serving corporate demand for profit, disrupting established farming practices and displacing communities. In Indonesia, the government of Prabowo Subianto inherited Joko Widodo\u2019s partiality toward streamlining wide-scale monocropping, facilitating the logistics of food and energy\u2019s profit- and export-oriented production, and coordinating government support for foreign investments into the Indonesian agriculture, energy, and mineral sectors. Displaced farmers then become migrant workers and refugees pursuing precarious jobs overseas like in Malaysia \u2013 a host to such cases of mass refugees movements and rural displaced peoples from its neighboring countries.<\/span><\/p>\n There are also cases of rural people reportedly fleeing due to militarization and conditions of war, which also make use of advanced technology including its massive data gathering to surveil and attack those engaged in agricultural-based labor to facilitate landgrabs for green projects, mining of critical minerals, and the corporate capture of food systems. One such account is the US-contracted surveillance plane that crashed into a rice farm in Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur in southern Philippines. Drones are used in Gaza and the West Bank to target civilian Palestinians and control movement. In southern Thailand, farmers report feeling concerned about their safety where the state is explicitly placing communities under surveillance, storing digital records of routines, and controlling peoples\u2019 political expressions and participation. Military expansion and agricultural digitalization go hand-in-hand in rationalizing the profit-driven production rather than collective nutrition and national development.<\/span><\/p>\n The undeniable potential of technological advancements to uplift people\u2019s lives is quashed by imperialism\u2019s greed for profit and militarism, which in turn exploit, marginalize, and deprive people especially the rural sector. Worse, today\u2019s climate crisis is capitalized to push for neoliberal reforms that enable imperialist plunder and secure corporate interests. In all such instances, rural people with peasants at the forefront continue to build and strengthen the broadest and widest mass resistance for their right to land and life.<\/span><\/p>\n In this year\u2019s Day of the Landless, the APC reaffirms its land to the tillers campaign amid the backwards condition of production and quality of life in the rural Global South. Our call: Intensify peasant struggle against imperialist plunder, war and militarism. PEASANTS RISE FOR LAND!\u00a0<\/span>ASSERT OUR RIGHTS TO OUR RESOURCES, RECLAIM OUR FOOD SYSTEMS!<\/span><\/p>\n The DOTL 2025 campaign is organized by the APC, in partnership with the Peasant Commission of the International League of People\u2019s Struggle, People\u2019s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, and PAN Asia Pacific.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n A. March 29 Global Action for the Day of the Landless<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n Contributions will be featured during the Global Landless Speakout.<\/p>\n Register: TBA<\/span><\/p>\n The International League of People\u2019s Struggle (ILPS) Commission 6 will host the Global Landless Speakout that brings together movements and organizations from Asia, Latin America, and Africa to highlight the pressing peasant struggles and campaigns currently unfolding in these regions. These movements will share their on-the-ground experiences, detailing the challenges faced by peasants and rural communities as they confront issues such as land dispossession, economic inequality, and environmental destruction. These powerful testimonies will shed light on the collective action of rural populations fighting for justice and self-determination.<\/span><\/p>\n As an educational effort, the APC aims to publish the <\/span>Rising of the Landless<\/b>. This publication will be a collection of works from APC\u2019s member organizations highlighting the different forms of struggle Asian peasants wage, their campaigns to highlight local and regional issues, political wins, gains and development, and how international solidarity is fostered and built across Asia, uniting the peoples\u2019 struggle for land, food, and justice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This publication will include the following themes:<\/span><\/p>\n The publication will be launched during the Global Landless Speakout.<\/span><\/p>\n Let us show our continuing solidarity for Palestine, with emphasis on supporting their resistance, through local actions and social media postings.<\/b><\/p>\n B. Build up activities<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n Register: bit.ly\/DOTL2025CampaignCall<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The Campaign Call aims to unite the organizers\u2019 members and network on this year\u2019s DOTL campaign \u2013 its objectives, conduct, and coordination of on-ground activities in line with the commemoration.<\/span><\/p>\n Register: bit.ly\/ZeroInMindoro<\/a><\/em> Large-scale military operations are taking place on the resource-rich island of Mindoro in the Southern Tagalog region of the Philippines. Ten battalions-worth of armed forces are currently deployed to facilitate the entry of mining and renewable energy projects. As a result, a de facto martial law is in place, subjecting locals with many forms of violations to their human rights and the international humanitarian law. Zero In: Mindoro aims to call the attention of the international community on the situation and urge for support and solidarity to #DefendMindoro.<\/span><\/p>\n Register: bit.ly\/Speakout4Rivers<\/a><\/em> In light of urgent concern for our rivers and river defenders, and in commemoration of the International Day of Action for Rivers on March 14, we are calling on Indigenous Peoples organizations, allies, and advocates, as well as peasant leaders, climate activists, and human rights defenders to Speakout for Rivers and River Defenders. Through this venue, we aim to spotlight pressing local, regional, and global issues that negatively impact our rivers, as well as the rights of those defending rivers from further degradation and resource plunder. Join us and together, let us rally behind our calls for accountability, climate justice, and peace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n<\/span>and pastoralists<\/span><\/li>\n\n
\n
\n
\nOrganized by Ground Zero<\/em><\/p>\n\n
\nOrganized by IPMSDL, PCFS, & APC<\/em><\/p>\n\n