Small Farmers and the Fair Distribution of Land

As we near the conclusion of the Enough Food For Everyone IF campaign, we wait to hear what action the G8 world leaders will take to help tackle hunger around the globe.

While tax dodging and aid may be top of the news agenda, land grabs and support for small farmers are also key issues to help create a sustainable food future for families who current don’t have enough to eat.

Ángel Aquino, a farmer and father of five sponsored children (plus two who aren’t), shares with us what life is like for them in Honduras. Here is their story:

We never owned a piece of land until we got organized with the assistance of the Catholic Church in 1998. That is how we were able to get the land to build our houses in a process that lasted almost eight years. Nowadays here in the community of San Juan, Copan Ruinas, 39 families own a house, but 25 still lack of one. We do not have electricity in the community, but we do have safe water and latrines at home.

Each family received two plots of land (0.288 acres) to be able to work, but that amount of land is too small because the amount of land necessary to produce beans is a lot. We sow a little bit of everything: vegetables, corn, plantains and coffee. All what we produce is for the family consumption and not for sale.

In the municipalities of Copan Ruinas, there are no jobs. We go out of the villages to work as day laborers, with no continuity. Sometimes we only work once a month, earning between 60 and 80 Lempiras per day (US$ 2.95). This amount of money is not enough to buy what we need for the week.

We should earn a lot more than that, because the prices of products in a basic food basket are very high. The coffee production collapsed because of the coffee rust disease; the owners of the farms, as well as us, don’t have money so there is no work.

We are in crisis, but not because we are lazy, as some government officials say we are.

If the government had a vision and political will to fight poverty, then they would help us to find a solution for the problem of land ownership, which is in their hands. I don’t see any other solution,the farmers with no land should have the opportunity to have a piece of land to produce.

The people who take decisions should go to the field, to the rural areas so that they know about the needs.

I studied until fifth grade of primary education, but our children do not have the opportunity to study and we all know that without education, there is no development.

We need a fair distribution of the land so we don’t lease the land to be able to sow, feed ourselves and resist the temptation to migrate.

Click here to add your voice to the IF Campaign and encourage the G8 leaders to do what is within their power to help farmers like Ángel to be able to feed his children as all parents should.