Ahngama, Sri Lanka: The First Asian Continental Youth Assembly of La Via Campesina took place in Ahngama Srilanka from 11 -14 January 2020, facilitated and hosted by the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reforms (MONLAR). The assembly brought together more than 60 peasant youth, comprising people of different identities and ethnicities and coming from 13 grass-roots movements in 9 countries across the Asian continent.
Young people from rural peasant organisations in Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka attended the Assembly, which offered to the youth a collective space for socio-political analyses and training on food and agricultural issues.
While welcoming the participants to the gathering, Pramesh Pokharel the Asian Youth elect in the International Coordination Committee of La Via Campesina and also from ANPFA Nepal reminded everyone of the harsh realities of the countryside and the context of rising authoritarism across the world.
Asia is a hugely diverse continent that also is home to nearly 65% of the world’s peasant and rural population. A majority of the food producers here are marginal or small-holder peasants. Even though the continent has huge diversity in language, culture, food and agricultural practices, much of it is now under threat from a capital-intensive, industrial and mono-cultural forms of agriculture.
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