NFU Continues to Affirm the Rights of Palestinians, Calls for Lasting Ceasefire in Israel-Palestine
On November 25, 2023 at the National Farmers Union’s (NFU) 54th annual convention in Ottawa, NFU delegates adopted a resolution which affirms the rights of Palestinian people to sovereignty, including food sovereignty, in their homelands and adds the NFU’s voice to the growing number of organizations pressuring the Canadian government to call for a lasting ceasefire in Israel-Palestine.
The NFU resolution recognizes both the urgent need to call for an immediate cessation of the siege on Gaza as well as a particular responsibility as a union of farmers and farm workers to speak up on this issue.
This resolution was brought forward by a group of Jewish farmers and allies within the NFU as a means of addressing the current events in Israel-Palestine, while simultaneously setting a precedent for future solidarity work by formally recognizing the sovereignty of the Palestinian people within the NFU’s Policy Book. The adoption of this resolution coincided with a national march in solidarity with Palestine.
The dedication of the NFU’s membership to international solidarity, justice and human rights has motivated the NFU to publicly oppose instances of state violence, including the use of hunger and displacement from land as tools of war.
As a founding member of the global Via Campesina movement for food sovereignty and peasant rights, international solidarity is a guiding principle within the NFU and one that informs its engagement in both domestic agricultural policy and international advocacy. The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UWAC), a farmer-led Via Campesina organization in Palestine, has called on the international community to speak out against the deliberate assault on agricultural and fishing infrastructure, as well as the destruction of and abrupt severing of access to Palestinian agricultural lands. These strategic acts of war target farmers and food producers in the region and threaten starvation of millions of people. In addition, these acts are the cause of catastrophic environmental damage and a threat to the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers and food producers far into the future.
Learn more by watching this teach-in series featuring farmers from UWAC and advocates offering on-the-ground perspectives on the struggle for food and land sovereignty in Palestine.
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