Side Event on the Decade of Family Farming

Excellencies, Distinguished guests, fellow panellists, Ladies and gentlemen,

 

 It is an honour for me to represent FAO at this side event initiated by the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to promote the International Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028.

  

Let me start my intervention with some facts.

 

More than 90% of the 570 million farms worldwide are managed by an individual or a family and rely primarily on family labour. Family farms are responsible for more than 80% of the world’s food production in value terms, on 56% of the land.

  

Yet, the vast majority of the family farms are small or very small. Farms  smaller than 2 hectares account for 84 percent of all farms and control only 12 percent of all agricultural land.

 

 Farmers themselves are, by far, the largest investors in agriculture.

 

 In this regard, please note that in 2012, FAO estimated that on-farm investments in agricultural capital stock is more than three times as large as investments financed by national budgets, Official Development Assistance and foreign direct investments combined.

 

So, it can be stated that family farming produces most of the food in the world. But family farming is about much more than just production.

• It is about transmitting knowledge from generation to generation benefitting families and communities. It is about respecting and valuing local tradition, customs and culture.

  

• It is about improving nutrition and providing healthier diets based on fresh food, fruits and vegetables.

  

• It is about linking production to families, to schools, to communities. It is about territorial development.

  

• And it is about sustainability. Nothing comes closer to the sustainable development paradigm in food systems than family farming.

 

All this means that the contribution of family farming to the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and the achievement of the SDGs, especially SDG2 on ending hunger, is enormous.

  

However, let us not forget that family farmers have many challenges and need our attention.

 

As you might know, around 80 percent of the world´s food insecure population lives in rural areas, and many of them are subsistence producers.

 

This is our paradox: a sector that is crucial for food security throughout the planet is also at risk of hunger.

 

If we want to leave no one behind, we need to bring rural communities in to the heart of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda as agents of change. This means putting family famers, fishers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples at the centre of policy making and responsible investments.

 

And let us not forget that it is not only family farmers that need our assistance. It is a two-way street: we need family farmers to reach the sustainable and food secure future we want.

 

To this context, FAO has had the honor to coordinate the International Year of Family Farming in 2014.

 

Perhaps the greatest success of the International Year is the strong political commitment we achieved.

 

Thousands of initiatives at local, regional and international levels fuelled a robust process of political dialogue among the 197 member states of FAO, other UN agencies, international organisations, family farmers’ networks, civil society organizations, academia, research organisations and the private sector.

 

National and regional policies, programs and activities, and institutional arrangements in support of family farming have been formulated and improved.

 

I am confident that Mr.Ortiz will speak about these more in details.

 

A strong political commitment in favour of family farming has risen at the highest level across the world. Not surprisingly, family farming is explicitly promoted in SDG2 while, implicitly, it plays a crucial role in the achievement of other 9 SDGs, such as SDG 1; 5; 12; 14; and 15. This integrated, indivisible set of global priorities stresses the need for a serious and ambitious common action to promote family farming worldwide as a central element to achieve the SDGs.

 

I would also like to advise you that the Year has greatly informed the work of FAO, particularly the launch of fifteen Regional Initiatives. Three Initiatives deal directly with family farming whilst all fifteen are meant to tackle, in a coordinated manner, the several structural factors of vulnerability that limit the potential of family farming.

 

Moreover, the Family Farming Knowledge Platform, hosted by FAO, in collaboration with many stakeholders such as governments, UN agencies, family farmers’ networks and producers organizations as well as research institutions, was created to reinforce this process and to serve as a comprehensive and up-to-date digital collection of policy, scientific, legal and statistical information on family farming, to support policy making and exchange of experiences and lessons learned.

 

Let me conclude by referring to the main policy recommendations of the Year which were synthetized into its Legacy document, stressing the actions to be undertaken in the future in order to endorse the achieved results and to implement the recommendations arisen from the broad policy consultations that were conducted during the Year.

 

And that is why we want to express our appreciation for the Government of Costa Rica for bringing this legacy forward and initiate the launch of the Decade of Family Farming with the support of many of you present today.

 

Thank you.