A group of anti-FTAA activists in Montreal will be marching on Tuesday in
solidarity with farmers and peasants all around the world. They will be
drawing attention to the links between free trade, biotechnology,
and low-price food imports to poorer countries, all of which they say hurt
food security. They will be marching to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, the
site of this year's La Conférence de Montréal.

- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - April 16th 2001 - MONTREAL

April 17th -- International Day of Farmer's Struggle.
=====================================================

A group of anti-FTAA activists in Montreal will be marching on Tuesday in
solidarity with farmers and peasants all around the world. They will be
drawing attention to the links between free trade, biotechnology,
and low-price food imports to poorer countries, all of which they say hurt
food security. They will be marching to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, the
site of this year's La Conférence de Montréal.

"One of the recurrent themes of La Conférence de Montréal is the 'bio-food
revolution', and how to force other countries to grow and import
genetically-modified foodstuffs", says Mike Leitold, an environment and
development student at McGill university. "Biotech food has been shown to
reduce food security, not contribute to it."

The activists see biotechnology, free trade agreements, and destructive
industrial agricultural systems as closely linked. According to Kevin
Walsh, a member of the group Food Not Lawns, which studies the politics of
global food systems: "Free trade agreements orient domestic agricultural
production towards intensive production for export, forcing millions of
farmers and indigenous people towards total bankruptcy. Food policy
should be directed towards supporting small farmers and feeding people,
not the pocketbooks of large North American corporations."

April 17 marks the fifth anniversary of a massacre of 19 landless
Brazilian peasants who attempted to take over a small portion of a massive
plantation left fallow by its owners. In Brazil, millions of families have
been denied any land while 1% of the population has ownership of close to
50% of all arable land.

"The solution to food insecurity, hunger, and rural poverty is not 'free
trade', but radical redistribution of land and resources, and the
democratization of the rural economy", says spokesperson Mike Leitold.

Some of the activists will be bearing coffins, covered with the flag
of Brazil's landless peasant's movement, to commemorate the 19 victims of
the massacre. April 17th has been proclaimed International Day of
Farmer's Struggle by Via Campesina, an international network of peasants
and small farmers. Solidarity actions are also taking place in Brazil,
Columbia, Italy, the Phillipines, India, Indonesia, France, Chile,
Uruguay, and Honduras.

Marchers will be meeting at 5pm at Le Place du Canada, at the corner of
Peel and René-Levesque. The coffins are being prepared all day Tuesday at
the Montreal Convergence Centre for the FTAA protests - 2149 Mackay.

For info about Via Campesina, see www.viacampesina.org
For info about food issues and the FTAA, see www.foodnotlawns.org
For info about La Conférence de Montréal, see www.tao.ca/~dgandhi/a17

- 30 -

Phone contact: Mike Leitold or Kevin Walsh 1-418-265-0094
E-mail: mlei...@hotmail.com or k...@tao.ca