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Toekomstboeren delegation at the Basque Country for an International Agroecological gathering with focus on collectives and cooperative projects

EHNE Bizkaia (https://www.ehnebizkaia.eus/) is a Bizkaia Agriculture Union existing since 1976 and member of the European Coordination of La Via Campesina for more than 2 decades. From the 18th until the 20th of September they organized a 3 day event in order to create a space for reflection and debate about the incorporation of young farmers in the agriculture sector. The event was a space as well to present a new publication from the organization where 12 collectives were interviewed in order to collect new organizational agroecological experiences from a feminist and intersectional approach.

The first day the event started with an online opening where some members of la Via Campesina from the global south (Mali, Indonesia  and Chile) were invited in order to share their struggles and experiences related to training and agroecological schools.
After finishing the online webinar the people present in the Basque Country visited a very inspiring Cooperative called Bizkaigane that promotes food sovereignty by offering citizens dairy products produced in a sustainable, local and ecological way since 1983.
(https://www.bizkaigane.eus/index_es.html)

The second day EHNE Bizkaia organized a public event where more than 60 people joined, most of them farmers from the region involved in the agroecological publication or people who wanted to learn more about the movement.
In this space a member of Toekomstboeren and EVCC Youth together with other ECVC comrades from Talamh Bea (Ireland) and Uniterre (Switzerland) shared a panel discussion where lost of question where asked about generational renewal, fair prices for farmers, national agroecological networks and collective work.

The last days more farm visits were organized to a local sider house, a visit to a 4 hectares Horticulture project and to a cooperative restaurant only serving agro ecological projects.

Events like this are crucial to strengthen the food sovereignty movement, learn from other collective agriculture schemes and keep building up towards an agroecological food system.