INTERVIEW WITH LUCÍA CORDERO
As COPROFAM's Youth Secretary and member of the ILC Youth Network, Lucía Cordero González participated in the 8th Global Conference on Family Farming: Sustainability of our planet, bringing the voice of rural youth from Latin America. We spoke with her to learn about her experience as a farmer in Uruguay, where she works for land rights and food sovereignty.
Lucía is the daughter and granddaughter of family farmers. Despite her young age, 28, she has significant experience of participation in family farming organisations. As a teenager, she joined the youth group within her parents' grassroots organisation. Since 2023, she has also been involved in the youth secretariat of COPROFAM, where she arrived as part of the National Commission for Rural Development, an organisation that works in defence of family farming in Uruguay.
With the desire to develop a collective productive project, together with two fellow farmers, she formed Las Gurisas Agroecological Collective. Together they applied for a programme of the National Institute of Colonisation (INC) called "Land for Young People", and succeeded in getting the agricultural cooperative UCN N°1 to allow them to settle in the Colonia Instrucciones del Año XIII, in Cololó, in the west of Uruguay. They have been living there since 2020. They have a hectare of land on which they carry out agro-ecological horticulture, producing various fresh vegetables, from which they then make preserves, jams and sauces. They also reproduce and conserve native seeds, as a way of contributing to the food security of the people in the territory.
Lucía Rodríguez, Lucía Cordero and Mariana Pérez are part of the Colectivo Agroecológico Las Gurisas. " In order to defend the territory and ensure active participation, it is essential to generate exchanges", they point out.
What is the role of youth in the development of family farming and the sustainability of the planet?
We, young people and women, have a fundamental role in the resistance of family farming in rural areas and especially in the production of food for food sovereignty, from our contribution in our daily work and care for life; a role that is often invisible.
FROM OUR PLACE WE ARE COMMITTED TO AGROECOLOGY AS A WAY OF LIFE THAT CONTRIBUTES TO THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE REALITY OF THE TERRITORIES WE INHABIT.
We are an active part of the rural sector, we are thinking about central issues such as caring for the environment and measures to mitigate climate change.
So I believe that the stability and permanence of rural youth on the land is strategic to guarantee the future of family, peasant and indigenous agriculture.
What are the main challenges faced by rural youth today?
THE CHALLENGE OF LAND ACCESS IN TERMS OF LAND TENURE AND OWNERSHIP IS CLEAR, BUT THERE ARE ALSO CHALLENGES FOR PERMANENCE.
Rural youth face difficulties in accessing credit for production, access to education, culture and recreation, among many others.
If we understand that land is not only a way of production but also a livelihood, then it is necessary to think not only about access to productive resources - which are very important - but also about other types of conditions that make up the quality of life and that help young people to remain on the land and live in dignity.
What difficulties do you identify in addressing rural youth issues?
On the one hand, people talk about youth as if it were a univocal thing. And I believe that when we talk about youth in family, peasant and indigenous agriculture in Latin America, we are talking about something very heterogeneous, which in each place and in each situation has its own particularities. Not thinking about their diversity leads to difficulties.
ON THE OTHER HAND, WHEN WE THINK ABOUT THE ISSUE OF YOUTH, WE OFTEN THINK THAT IT IS AN ISSUE OF THE FUTURE, BUT IN REALITY IT IS AN ISSUE OF THE PRESENT.
Today, young people are on the land, today we are working, today we are discussing. And we need to think of youth as a strategic actor that can contribute not only to generational issues, but also to take us into account in the debates on other issues, and thus achieve real participation.
In this sense, I believe that we young people must train, organise, participate and debate, and thus be able to arrive at spaces such as the Global Conference on Family Farming with clear, consensual positions and concrete proposals that can be implemented.
WE HAVE TO STRENGTHEN OUR EXPERIENCES THROUGH EXCHANGE AND COLLECTIVE CONSTRUCTION.
ABOUT THE EVENT
The 8th Global Conference on Family Farming was held in March and brought together nearly 200 participants from over 55 countries to discuss the diverse, complex and interconnected challenges facing family farming in the world and proposals to ensure the sustainability - economic, social and environmental - of the planet.