Colombia’s land reform conference 2026

Nury Martínez, president of the Colombian Fensuagro, speaking at a press conference at COP16 in Cali, Colombia. Credit: Fensuagro.

Carbon Brief, 29 ene 2024: At the UN biodiversity summit in October, Carbon Brief interviewed Nury Martínez, president of the Colombian farmers’ organisation Fensuagro. She is also a member of the South America coordinating committee of Vía Campesina, a global organisation representing more than 200 million peasants in 80 countries.

Martínez told Carbon Brief about the main expectations of the peasant movement for the second conference on agrarian reform and rural development, which will address farmers’ demands to access and work larger swathes of land. It will take place in Colombia during the first quarter of 2026.

This second conference will take stock of the first one, held in 2006, which delivered a set of voluntary guidelines for governance and land tenure, and will discuss a new agrarian reform.

What does the proposed agrarian reform consist of?

Land must fulfil a social function. That's why we say that land is for those who work it – because there are large tracts of land where the owners don't use it, or [they] have extensive livestock where a cow has four or five hectares and we have no land to produce food.

We propose an integral and popular agrarian reform because we believe that it goes beyond access to land, [but also includes] access to the goods of nature, such as water, seeds, access to territories…[We want] to stop the hoarding [of land] in the hands of a few.

What would be the result of these agrarian reforms? Transforming the way in which food is being produced for the world?

We say strengthen peasant production because we have always produced without chemicals. We are making the transition to agroecology, to rescuing culture and ancestral knowledge. [But] you can't do agroecology if you don't have land, territory.

We are proposing food sovereignty because we consider food [to be] a human right. [Also] access to technical assistance, fair commercialisation and [strengthening of] local markets.

Would agrarian reform be implemented at the global level, or only in Colombia?

The second conference will be held in Colombia in the first quarter of 2026, but it is a global event, with the participation of more or less 119 countries that are part of the United Nations.

The countries supported it being in Colombia because the Colombian government is implementing the National Agrarian Reform System. Right now we are having the possibility of access to land after more than 100 years.