On Dec. 17, the United Nations General Assembly took a quiet but historic vote, approving the Declaration on the Rights of Peasats and other Peole Working in Rural Areas by a vote of 121-8 with 52 abstentions. The declaration, the product of some 17 years of diplomatic work led by the international peasant alliance La Via Campesina, formally extends human rights protections to farmers whose "seed sovereignty" is threatened by government and corporate practices.