Plataforma Rural. Alliance for a live rural world.

Plataforma Rural has become one of the most representative social movements of Spain, which brings together many groups, local experiences, rural people, etc. Beyond the organizations that compose it, Plataforma Rural has achieved to represent a political alternative to the rural decline of the Spanish state. Plataforma Rural is configured as a social movement that brings together progressive forces working in villages, being the only movement that cames from rural area in a context dominated by organizations and urban movements.
Since it began it has been able to introduce social issues that were exclusively rural or agricultural.

It began the battle to claim the maintenaince of rural schools, followed with the need to change PAC,  making clear to society that the problem of agriculture  and food is not only sectorial; it´s a problem that affects all citizens, and all of us have to give an opinion about it.

The progess of agriculture industrialization has led to introduce  new  issues into debate,  which have been answered, such as the imposition of the technollogy, biotechnollogy, or the new use and management of water, among others ...

In this line of work we emphasize  the claim and the extension of the concept of FOOD SOVEREIGNTY among social organizations, a fact that has contributed to the confrontation of Plataforma Rural  with other social forces that defended other positions.
In the same way,  Plataforma Rural has been able to globalize and transmit to Spanish society that this struggle is international and there is a worldwide demand. The slogan  “For a countryside alive”, that  was coined in the first symposium held in El Escorial in 1992, has been assumed socially.

At this time there are aspects of the struggle for a live countryside that are still needed to struggle in a allied and solidarity way with all the social forces that demand that change in rural areas, among them include:

• The struggle against the WTO and trade liberalization and for food sovereignty.
• The need of still claiming a Public Agricultural Policy for agriculture but also for society as a whole and based on food sovereignty.
• The strong opposition to the expansion of biotechnology, biofuels, and transgenic agriculture.
• The need to deepen and offer real alternatives for a new model of farming.
• The urge to put on the table the agrarian reform in our context, as an essential requirement for the survival of familiar and peasant farming.
• The extent of direct market experience as an alternative to globalization and industrialization of agriculture.
• The defense for the maintenance of public services (schools, transport, health, etc. ..) in small rural communities.
• Continue deepen and spreading the analysis against global trade liberalization and impacts on peasant economies.
• Reclaiming a new Common Agricultural Policy to contribute to food sovereignty.

More information: http://www.nodo50.org/plataformarural/