Peasants and the Right to Participate in decision-making

The 3rd session of the Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas was held at the United Nations Office in Geneva from 24 to 28 February 2025.

This session of the Working Group comprised mainly meetings of Member States and United Nations bodies to discuss the promotion of the rights of peasants throughout the world, and in particular their right to participate in decision-making. Civil society was able to talk and interact constructively with the five independent experts of the Working Group, all of whom demonstrated a keen interest and a strong willingness to work together with rural and peasants’ organisations, as well as with their allies.

French and Swiss members of La Via Campesina (LVC) presented an overview of the current problems affecting peasants in their countries. In Switzerland, Uniterre’s representative pointed out that roughly 80% of retail sales are controlled by only two major corporations. Thus, these two giants can often dictate the price paid for farm products and determine working conditions in agriculture generally, which highlights the great imbalance in the power relations that pervade the Swiss food system.

If the peasants’ right to participate in decision-making is to be respected, they must have a say in price negotiation processes, which is currently not the case. Furthermore, in the Swiss context, it was pointed out that small peasants’ organisations noted for their progressive views on agriculture and food systems have been excluded from the group set up by the Swiss government to define the country’s agricultural policy, officially owing to a “lack of space”.

The CETIM recommended that the Working Group take into consideration and study States like Cuba and Nepal, as concrete examples of good practices in national policies and laws implementing the rights of peasants enshrined in the Declaration. It also called on the Working Group to promote the Declaration’s rights holders’ right to participate in decision-making within all relevant bodies, instances and mechanisms, whether at the national or the international level. Without the genuine participation of peasants in decision-making processes, it will simply not be possible to implement the rights contained in the Declaration in a coherent, inclusive and targeted manner.

As part of these discussions on the right to participate, the CETIM collaborated with LVC and its partners to draw up contributions on the issues surrounding this right in Switzerland, Brazil and in the rest of the world.