2016
Smallholders play an essential role in ensuring food security and nutrition, contributing to a vast range of different benefits such as creating employment in rural areas, and enhancing the sustainable management of natural resources. They are themselves often affected by food insecurity and malnutrition, and they too often struggle to reach the markets that could sustain their livelihoods.
Smallholders engage in many interrelated markets, but also face challenges in securing market access. Governments have an essential role to play in addressing their specific constraints and maximizing potential for beneficial access to equitable, reliable and remunerative markets.
To help countries address these challenges, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) endorsed the Policy Recommendations on Connecting Smallholders to Markets at CFS 43 in 2016, aiming to provide guidance on empowering smallholder producers within local, national, and regional food systems.
The Policy Recommendations facilitate creating a more enabling market environment for smallholders, expanding opportunities, strengthening access and control over productive assets, promoting investment and access to inclusive financial systems, improving smallholder-targeted infrastructure, investing in capacity building, and facilitating production and trade diversification.
