As geopolitical conflicts intensify and corporate control over land, territory and natural commons deepens, social movements, and Indigenous Peoples from across the world are rallying behind the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) – being hosted by the Government of the Republic of Colombia and to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, from 24 to 28 February 2026.

From Palestine to Venezuela, from Cuba to the Arctic, a renewed imperial scramble for territory, minerals, water, and energy is underway. Financial investments, military occupation, economic blockades, and so-called security, development, and green transition projects are increasingly used by governments, corporations and elites to dispossess peoples and grab power over strategic resources. As a result, the world is witnessing escalating land concentration, the dispossession of territories, natural commons, and growing inequality. As global social movements of small-scale food producers, we are determined to unite in Cartagena to expose how these global power struggles directly impact rural and urban working-class communities and to fight for public policies that respect our rights and autonomy.

As a result of this capitalist and imperialist expansion, the global food system is also in deep crisis. It is collapsing under climate breakdown, industrial monocultures, and extreme inequality. We, the peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and small-scale food producers who feed most of the world and protect ecosystems, are facing a new wave of dispossession driven by militarisation, big technology, organised crime and the commercialisation of climate action.

We, representatives of social movements from over 70 countries, organized through the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty (IPC), and attending ICARRD+20 as part of the Common Political Action Agenda emerging from the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, call on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to establish robust, participatory, and regular assessment mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT).The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) must be central pillars of comprehensive agrarian reforms, guiding states to protect collective rights, ensure participation, uphold free, prior and informed consent, and defend territories against dispossession.

ICARRD+20, which will take place from 24 to 28 February 2026, comes twenty years after the first conference in Porto Alegre. In the intervening decades, land concentration has intensified and new forms of land and water grabbing have expanded. As social movements, we insist that the conference must move beyond technical recommendations and voluntary pledges.

We are calling for comprehensive agrarian reform grounded in four pillars: recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and customary rights over land, territories and water; redistribution of land and natural commons, including limits on corporate and military accumulation; restitution for communities dispossessed by land grabbing, colonialism, occupation, and conflict; and strong regulation of land markets to protect food-producing territories from extractive, speculative, and military uses.

A comprehensive agrarian reform is central to democracy, peace, and climate justice. Any meaningful agrarian reform must centre women’s equal land rights, secure dignified futures for rural youth, and recognise the rights, safety, and belonging of sexually diverse and gender-diverse people in rural territories. Without political commitments and effective global monitoring and cooperation mechanisms, land grabbing simply takes new forms.

Our struggle for agrarian reform today is inseparable from our fight against imperialism, authoritarianism, and ecological collapse. ICARRD+20 is a critical moment to intensify our united efforts to reclaim land, territories, restore dignity to rural peoples, build food sovereignty, and defend the foundations of life itself. As the IPC Working Group on Land, Forests, Water, and Territories, we will organize a Social Movements and Indigenous Peoples Forum on February 22 and 23 to prepare our collective proposals for the Conference.

Defending Life, Building Food Sovereignty!

People’s Control over Land, Water and Territories,NOW!

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR PRESS

• List of Global Social Movements: LVC, IITC, WFFP, WFF, WAMIP, WMW, FIMARC, MIJARC, HIC, URGENCI
• List of Regional Social Movements: AFSA, CAOI, COPROFAM, ECMIA, MAELA, PROPAC, ROPPA, USFSA
• Key Dates
  • Social Movement Forum: 22–23 February 2026
  • Academic Forum: 20–22 February 2026
  • Official ICARRD+20 Conference: 24–28 February 2026
  • Press Conference: To be confirmed (virtual or Cartagena)

Press Enquiries 

Contact

• Viviana Rojas (LVC) – viviana.rojas@viacampesina.org
• Andrey Martinez (CLOC-LVC) – andreyviacampesina@gmail.com
• Francesco Panié (IPC Secretariat) – f.panie@croceviaterra.it