In the year 2007, there are 850 million hungry people. A terrible irony is that 80% of them are small farmers. They have the skills to grow food but a broken global food system, including unfair trade policies undercuts their livelihoods.

The Via Campesina (Peasants' Way) is a global social movement representing more than 150 million small producers from five continents. Its members-community-based movements like Grassroots International's partners the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil-work locally in their countries as well as with other Via members at the regional and international levels, putting into practice viable and sustainable alternatives grounded in the concept of food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty is the right of family farmers to produce for their local markets without being squeezed out by cheap imports and the right of consumers to purchase healthy food produced locally. The Via Campesina mobilizes resistance to top-down development models that fatten transnational agribusinesses but do little for the majority of the world's food producers and consumers.

Begun in 1992 in Nicaragua with the active participation of Latin American and European organizations, the Via's revolving international office is currently housed in Asia (Indonesia).

The Via has been at the center of the global debate on the World Trade Organization's (WTO) role in agriculture. Industrialized countries have pressured the developing world to throw open their agricultural markets to "free" trade and agricultural products priced too low for family farmers to earn a living wage. The Via has played a leading role in resisting that pressure. The Via's mobilizations and strong presence in Hong Kong and at other WTO meetings has contributed greatly to the collapse of the Doha Round of WTO negotiations at Geneva in 2006. This so called development round was rigged against the real development aspirations of poor countries.

The Via has also been a tireless advocate against the IMF and World Bank's structural adjustment programs cutting critical social services and adding burdensome debt.

Grassroots provides financial support to the Via and its member organizations at the local, regional and global levels.

For example, local support has included "seeds and tools" funding for sustainable development projects such as raising organic free-range chickens in Brazil and reintroducing Creole pigs in Haiti. Locally, we also offer capacity-building grants to help build new generations of Via leaders, particularly among women and youth. This leadership renewal work is critical as so many farmers have to leave the countryside in search of work.

Regional level support has included funding learning exchanges between Brazilian and Peruvian farmer groups and a training center for Central American and Caribbean Via leaders.

Global level support has funded Via members to participate in and advocate at WTO meetings, World Social Forum meetings and other key international gatherings, such as the Global Food Sovereignty Forum. We support the Via's International Secretariat in building the movement's organizational capacity. We are pleased to support a web-based alternative media and communications portal for Latin American Via members.

In all, between 2005 and 2007, Grassroots will channel almost $300,000 to the Via Campesina, plus almost $700,000 to Via member organizations.

Grassroots' support for the Via Campesina goes beyond financial support. Working closely with a Via North America member, the National Family Farm Coalition (a U.S. organization representing family farmers across the United States), Grassroots is doing education and advocacy work to ensure that the U.S. Farm Bill does not hurt small farmers and farmworkers in the U.S. and around the world.