WORLD FARMERS’ ORGANIZATION GENERAL ASSEMBLY “Harvesting Tomorrow: Farmers Shaping the Future of Agriculture and Food Production” Statement

Dear Colleagues from IFAD and WFP,

Dear Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty of Italy,

Dear Chair of the World Farmers’ Organization

Distinguished Guests, Members of the WFO,

Welcome to your home at FAO headquarters!

Today, we gather to address challenges that affect us all as a global community, in the face of the increasing pressures of food availability, food accessibility and food affordability for the vulnerable people globally.

Agrifood systems can help us address this and other challenges and steer the world to a more sustainable path, accelerating progress towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

But our current agrifood systems are not yet achieving the desired outcomes and need to be urgently transformed to become more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.

Almost 80 percent of the world’s poor and food insecure live in rural areas, and most of them are small-scale family farmers – the very same people who produce the foods for all consumers.

They are the ones facing many difficulties, including lack of access to the resources they need, to equal opportunities, and to markets.

We need to produce more with less.

We also need to work to address food loss and waste, diet-related diseases, depletion of natural resources, and the impacts of the climate crisis, among others.

Farmers are fundamental contributors and concrete driving forces for the transformation of agrifood systems.

They are the primary agents of change for the transformation needed based on their combination of innovative practices and extensive traditional knowledge.

There are around 4.53 billion people living in the rural areas and 608 million farms in the world, of which more than 90 percent are run by an individual or a family and rely primarily on family labour.

They operate at small scale, yet produce around 80 percent of the world’s food in value terms.

They also fulfil key environmental, social and cultural roles.

They are custodians of biodiversity, rooted in their communities with a unique understanding and ability to protect local ecologies, knowledge and heritage.

Family farmers are also the major part of private investors in agriculture, and form the backbone of the rural economic structure.

Despite their central role, family farmers are often the most vulnerable and face the highest levels of poverty and food insecurity.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

To overcome barriers, farmers need to better coordinate and strengthen their collaboration, to improve their access to agricultural resources, public services and policies.

The World Farmers’ Organization is a great example of effective collaboration, bringing together more than 80 national farmers’ organizations from all over the world.

Producer organizations can bring economies of scale to agricultural inputs, machinery, technologies, and access to financial resources and markets.

These organizations also disseminate knowledge, information and innovation, as well as creating solidarity networks in rural communities.

And they can contribute to policy change, linking local solutions to national and global goals and challenges.

FAO works in close partnership with various farmer organizations, including through the World Farmers’ Organization, to support agrifood systems transformation.

Effective partnerships are at the core of FAO’s work.

We must foster an environment of participatory, evidence-based decision-making, which empowers all actors across the value chain, leaving no one behind.

Together, we can drive innovative solutions at scale.

FAO is proud to be the leading UN agency, together with IFAD, for the implementation of the UN Decade of Family Farming 2019–2028,

Which was established to promote public policies that better support family farmers worldwide.

FAO looks forward to working with the World Farmers’ Organization as they take on the Vice-Presidency of the UN Decade’s International Steering Committee,

Particularly, because 2024 marks 5 years of the UN Decade and marks the mid-term of its implementation.

And today’s event is an essential step towards the Global Family Farming Forum that will be held in Rome in October 2024, officially signalling the mid-term of the UN Decade of Family Farming.

In addition, last month, the UN General Assembly declared the year 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer.  Another momentous focus on rural women since the establishment of the International Day of Rural Women on 15 October by the UN General Assembly in 1996.

The International Year of the Woman Farmer will add an excellent opportunity to promote effective policies and actions against the barriers and challenges that women farmers face across agrifood systems.

I encourage the World Farmers’ Organization to increase awareness of the crucial role that women farmers around the world play in agrifood systems, and to promote gender equality and empowerment of all women in agriculture.

Dear Colleagues,

We must create incentives not only for today, but also for the future generations of family farmers, and especially women farmers.

FAO will continue to recognize the vital contributions of family farmers to the transformation of agrifood systems, and this Assembly provides an important platform to amplify the voices of these small-scale farmers, to allow them to share experiences, build up solidarity and learn lessons from each other,

To harness their full potential for the Four Betters: better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life - leaving no one behind.

You are the game changers of agrifood systems, and the guardians of food security and the planet’s sustainability.

Thank you.