Elizabeth Mpofu. Photo courtesy of ZIMSOFF.
A poem by Elizabeth Mpofu, Chairperson of Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF), one of IDEX’s newest grantees. She is also General Coordinator of the international peasant movement La Via Campesina, a coalition of 164 organizations in 73 countries around the world, representing about 200 million peasant, landless, indigenous, and other farmers. This poem first appeared on ZIMSOFF’s Facebook page.
Climate Justice and Food Sovereignty Now!
Oh! Oh! Nature mourns, Humanity perishes!
Why? Seasons have changed
Now unpredictable and unreliable!
Hotter, drier and shorter!
Winds and storms harsher and destructive
Mother Earth mourns, the land is barren.
Women, men and children, plants and animals perish!
Capitalist industrial agriculture, what have you done?
Everywhere, Mother Earth crumbles
As toxics and harmful GMO seeds swell her belly.
Heavy machines trample her belly
Their dark plumes polluting the sky,
A new baby, Climate Change, is conceived and born!
Oh! What is all this?
Ecological niches shrink
Biodiversity fast disappears
Greater uncertainty hovers everywhere
Heightened risks for us the food producers
Traditional agriculture knowledge is fast eroding
What and who shall save us?
Climate change knows no peace,
Hungers for only for destruction!
Greed for profits feed him!
Extreme, extreme, extreme weather phenomena, his fruits!
Environmental and humanitarian disasters!
Floods, droughts, landslides, diseases!
Humanity cries: No Food!
Nature cries: Inhabitable! Inhabitable!
Is there a remedy?
Yes but we hear only false solutions!
Free Markets, REDD, Climate Smart agriculture,
Green economy, Agrofuels, Carbon trading, land grabbing, more industrial farming,
Massive use of herbicides, inorganic fertilizers and
More GMOs!
Oh Lord! All to grow climate change! Why?
Profits! Profits! More profits! cries Capitalism, his father!
Photo courtesy of ZIMSOFF.
But hope looms in the horizon
Food sovereignty, our hope!
Comes to restore social justice to humanity,
Ecological sustainability to nature
Biodiversity and cultural diversity to all peoples of Mother Earth!
Arise ye peoples, women and men, the landless, peasants, indigenous farmers, forest and fisherfolks,
Let your hope be heard in all the corners of the earth!
Climate Justice and Food Sovereignty Now!
Globalise the Struggle, Globalise Hope!
Viva La Via Campesina, Viva
Small holder farmers Mozambique and Zimbabwe gathered at Shashe Agroecology School in Masvingo, Zimbabwe last month. IDEX partner ZIMSOFF hosted a workshop on the implications of new regional seed laws on smallholder farmers in both countries and ways to support each other. Photo courtesy of ZIMSOFF.
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