Introduction to Schola Campesina
(Andrea Ferrante)
Schola Campesina is an international agroecology school -based in the territory of the Biodistrict della Via Amerina e delle Forre in Italy- seeking to share, valorize and develop knowledge on agroecology and the global governance of food and agriculture. Our activities are directed towards food producers’ organization and aim at advancing the food sovereignty agenda at the global level.
More specifically, Schola Campesina facilitates the sharing of knowledge amongst food producers’ organizations and other allies (academia) on global governance processes. Our actions are based on the Nyéléni International Forum for Agroecology and plan of action, combined with a strong Right-based approach and are in support of the global Food sovereignty movement. Our activities (events, trainings, action research) are empowering food producers’ organizations from all constituencies to be more effective within the global spaces of governance and better skilled to use the progressive international tools at national and local levels.
Reference document
Schola Campesina vision document (2017)
Nyéléni International Forum for Agroecology (2015)
Schola Campesina has created the e-learning training course “Introduction to the global governance of food and agriculture from a food sovereignty perspective”.
This e-learning training was made possible thanks to the commitment of all the speakers who shared their knowledge with our community. It is through the meaningful dialogue of their diverse kinds of knowledge that food producers, NGO/CSO members, academics and others have contributed to creating this training course. Thank you to all of them.
Purpose of the training
This e-learning platform provides an overview of global spaces of food and agricultural governance. The course starts with a general introduction on how Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) gradually entered key spaces of global governance (Module II). Module III focuses on the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), where CSOs engage in advocacy through the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM). This course also covers other international and intergovernmental spaces – such as the FAO and the UN Human Rights Council – where the food sovereignty agenda is being advanced (Module IV), and highlights how specific constituencies use these global governance spaces (Module V).
Goal
With this online training, Schola Campesina wishes to empower members of food producers’ organizations, with a special focus on youth, and to strengthen their capacity to influence global spaces. Through their advocacy, they can bring the voice of the agroecology and food sovereignty movements onto the global agenda. We also aim at improving the use of global outputs (policy recommendations, guidelines, etc.) at national and local levels for the benefit of social movements.
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“The Agroecology Fund is thrilled to support the Schola Campesina to train effective grassroots advocates to move local and global food systems towards agroecology. With threats so prominent to farmers’ rights and livelihoods, consumers’ diets and climate-ravaged ecosystems, we need strong movements to work with policy makers to construct agroecological food systems. We are grateful for your important work.”
Daniel Moss, Executive Director, Agroecology Fund
This training course was made possible thanks to the kind support of Agroecology Fund 
To access to the training course please enter the password.
If you don’t have the password , please register.
Video of the month
The overall challenges
(Sofia Monsalve/FIAN)
Module I. Introduction
Video1: Introduction to Schola Campesina
Video 2: Introduction to this e-learning platform
Video 3: Introduction to the global governance of food and agriculture
Video 4: Introduction to the main actors
Module II. Civil Society Organizations in the global spaces
Video 1: How Civil Society Organizations entered the global institutions in Rome: a brief history (Nora Mckeon / Terra Nuova)
Video 2: The overall challenges (Sofia Monsalve / FIAN)
Video 3: The food sovereignty approach (Kannaiyan / Farmers Association of Tamil Nadu)
Module III. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS): how Civil Society is organized in the CFS (CSM) + focus on major policy processes
Video 1: The Civil Society Mechanism and Indigenous Peoples’ for the CFS (Martin Wolpod-Bosien/CSM)
Video 2: The role of CSOs in global governance (Josh Brem-Wilson / CAWR)
Video 3: The challenge of facilitation (Elene Shatberashvili / Elkana)
Video 4: “The Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition” (Isabel Álvarez / Urgenci)
Video 5: “The Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises” (FFA) (Emily Mattheisen / FIAN)
Video 6: “Food Losses and Waste in the Context of Sustainable Food Systems” (Judith Hitchman / Urgenci)
Video 7: The importance of monitoring in CFS (Emily Mattheisen / FIAN)
Video 8: The Agroecology process in the CFS (Andrea Ferrante / Schola Campesina)
Module IV. FAO and other global poles of action
Video 1: Current challenges faced by Civil Society Organization in the 4 global spaces of governance (Stefano Prato / SID)
Video 2: The United Nations Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP) (Ramona Dominicioui / LVC)
Video 3: The importance of UNDFF from a CSO perspective (Alberto Broch / COPROFAM)
Video 4: Biodiversity and Agroecology (Maryam Rahmanian / CENESTA)
Module V. How different constituencies use global governance spaces
Video 1: Indigenous Peoples’ (Saul Vicente / IITC)
Video 2: Fisherfolk (Editrudith Lukanga / WFF)
Video 3: Pastoralists (Verdiana Morandi /WAMIP)
