The operational guidelines of the World Agriculture Watch (WAW) provides support for stakeholders engaged in agriculture policies to ensure that the diverse realities of farms are captured and represented in data collection efforts to achieve sustainable and inclusive agrifood systems.

This technical book is structured around three main sections: 1) presentation of the WAW harmonized analytical framework to characterize the diversity of farms, including a subsection linking farm level with landscape and territorial approaches; 2) simple and robust guidance to engage into data production at farm/family (household) level; 3) orientations on how to use data sets to define typologies and information systems to help designing and monitoring adapted investments strategies and programs that strengthen the productive capacities of family farms.

There are more than 85% of the world’s farms are smaller than 2 hectares and more than 500 million family-owned farms globally. Farms, especially family farms, are highly diverse and generally have limited capital to invest unless they mobilize their own labour force (human capital). Unequal access to assets (natural, physical, social, human or financial) means farmers have varying ability to engage in different types of on- and off-farm activity. To be inclusive, we need to better target investment for all types of farm. 

World Agriculture Watch (WAW) offers a comprehensive approach and tools to examine, analyse and monitor agricultural transformation around the world, to identify patterns and drivers of change and assess their impact. While WAW collects data on all types of farm, including industrial agriculture, it pays particularly close attention to family farms, to better tackle the constraints on their development through investment policies.

There are  three stages in total for actions of WAW programme, which are CONSOLIDATED FARM DATA, INVESTMENT STRATEGIES, and NATIONAL OBSERVATORIES. 

To scale up the initiative, WAW plans to rely on the involvement of numerous interconnected networks and hence will contribute to SDG 17 by strengthening partnerships between CSO, Governments and the private sector. Country projects will be undertaken in 21 countries in which there are around 100 regional observation sites established. WAW also partners with rural producer organizations, national farmer platforms and regional organizations. It works with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to strengthen the capacity of small support and cooperative groups.