PARRDS was established on 30 March 1994. A few months earlier, the
Congress for a People’s Agrarian Reform (CPAR), the broadest gathering of
peasant federations up to that time, folded up after having pushed for a
radical agrarian reform program for six years and united the major peasant
groups around this advocacy.
PARRDS has tried to fill part of the vacuum created by the
departure of CPAR. It brought together some of the POs in CPAR, NGOs
involved in its expanded secretariat, and political blocs that actively
supported these POs and NGOs.
Since its inception, PARRDS has utilized the opportunities
offered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) through
critical engagement rather than through outright opposition or uncritical
collaboration. At the same time, the Coalition seeks to create far better
instruments for land redistribution and rural upliftment in the context of
human rights promotion and democratization.
Hence, PARRDS and its members’ main role is to help farmers and
farm-workers to understand and appreciate their agrarian, political, civil
and other rights, to organize themselves, and to fight for these rights
with PARRDS alongside and supportive of them. This is done through
cooperative efforts among its members and with kindred formations and
institutions.