International Solidarity

Backgrounder to NFU statement in solidarity with Indian farmers

Why are India’s farmers protesting? India has 164 million farmers, and many have small farms where they grow food to feed themselves and sell locally to feed their communities. Over half of India’s workforce is involved in the agriculture sector. Hundreds of thousands of farmers are protesting impending changes that will result from three controversial Read more

NFU stands in solidarity with Indian farmers protesting new agricultural laws

The National Farmers Union stands in solidarity with farmers in India, who continue to protest new agricultural laws formally passed in September. This agriculture reform will effectively undermine the guaranteed prices farmers receive through government purchase of staple crops and open them up to exploitation by large corporations. Tens of thousands of Indian farmers are Read more

Till, sow and harvest transformative ideas for the future!

Now is the moment to demand food sovereignty – #17April

17 April 2020 – the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle – La Via Campesina keeps alive the memory of #EldoradoDosCarajás. The COVID-19 crisis shows us that now is the moment to demand structural reforms of the agri-food systems at a global level. Read more

Union Farmer Quarterly: Spring 2020

In this issue: Messages from the Editorial Advisory Committee, President Katie Ward, Youth President Stuart Oke; Regional Coordinators NEW MEMBERSHIP TYPE: What the Farming Unit means and why it was adopted NOUVEAU TYPE D’ADHÉSION: L’unité agricole : définition et motifs de l’adoption Articles: Knowing the borders of Canada’s Food System — by Bryan Dale, Carla Read more

National Farmers Union urges action to end gender-based violence

(Perth, ON) — On Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Gender Based Violence, the National Farmers Union (NFU) remembers the 14 young women who were brutally murdered at l’École Polytechnique de Montréal in a heinous act of gender-based violence on December 6, 1989. The NFU recognizes the disproportionate levels of violence directed against Read more

Union Farmer Quarterly: Fall 2019

In this issue: Messages from the Editorial Advisory Committee, President Katie Ward, Youth President Stuart Oke; Regional Coordinators It’s a blast from the past! In celebration of the NFU’s 50th Anniversary, we are profiling some of the folks who have held national elected positions over the years, including Ann Slater, NFU Vice President (Policy), 2013 Read more

Union Farmer Newsletter: October – November 2019

Inside this issue … Seed Synergy update: Seed industry groups are preparing to consolidate power in one big organization —  Five of the six Seed Synergy groups are trying to merge into one big group as part of their push to get control of Canada’s seed regulatory system. GM Herbicide-Tolerant Crop Concerns — Bayer is Read more

La Via Campesina response to USMCA

The original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, or TLCAN) devastated rural communities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. From displacing peasants in Mexico and forcing millions of them to migrate north, to the forced removal of trade protections for family farmers in Canada and the United States, the 1990s experiment with free trade Read more

Celebrating Evelyn Potter’s life and reflecting on the impact of her work

I first heard the name Evelyn Potter at my first National Farmers Union Convention in Ottawa in 2009. It was the 40th Anniversary of the NFU. Unfortunately Evelyn was unable to attend in person as planned, but her written address was read to the convention as the NFU’s First Women’s president to mark this significant Read more

The NFU and La Via Campesina demand peasant rights NOW

On April 17th each year La Via Campesina (LVC), the international movement of 200 million peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, rural women and youth, Indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world, commemorates the massacre of landless peasants in Eldorado dos Carajás, Brazil in 1996. The peasants were slaughtered while struggling Read more