Sajikumari / S. Sujatha / Radhika
women organic farmers in Kovalam, Kerala, India

On the occasion of World Rural Women’s Day and World Food Day, we the women belonging to Kovalam, a small village in the State of Kerala, India, share our concern about the way our right to produce safe food and keep our environment intact for our children is taken away by the governments and big companies.

While we are trying to rejuvenate our land and water by taking away hazardous pesticides and fertlizers and other toxic materials and trying to protect our seeds, we understand that our national government is in the process of giving permission to genetically modified food crops like Bt Brinjal, Golden rice, GM potatoes and GM mustard. This is a violation of our fundamental right to produce our food which is culturally and ecologically appropriate to our life. We, who have the capability to produce good quality food for our country totally oppose this introduction of genetically modified seeds which are proved to be hazardous to environment and our own health and which are owned by multinational companies.

On this day, we declare our village as a GM-Free village where we will not allow any genetically modified seed to enter our village and genetically modified food to enter our kitchen and we the producers of non-chemical food will start spreading this message to our sisters, both producers and consumers of our state.



D.M. Indrawathi Women farmers from Okkampitiya in Monaragala Dry Zone district in Sri Lanka :











TAUGYA
Chittagong Hill Tribes

a photo relating Indigenous rural women condition in Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Indigenous rural women always suffer tremendous workload comparing her male partner. In this picture a rural indigenous women is carrying her two babies along with her belongings whereas her male partner is not helping her and standing without anything.




photo by Lok Sanjh (Pakistan) which supports women farmers in their struggle for food sovereignty, and demand for fair distribution of resources and a secure and sustainable access to land, water and seeds.





Wha Wha, Karen Activist
Mae Jot, Thailand

Although there are days like rural women’s day and world food day, and are celebrated worldwide, Karen woman like me from Burma who is in the same struggles with the fellow migrants from Burma, do not even know that these days exist. Instead of taking days off and celebrating on these days designated for us, we have to work for 14 hours everyday. If we do not work one day, we will not be able to feed ourselves that day. We do not have time to celebrate and think about these because our immediate worry is not about celebration, but the next meal and security.