Connecting Smallholders to Markets

The majority of the 570 million farms in the world are small. Smallholders supply 80% of overall food produced in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America through farmers, artisan fisher folk, pastoralists, landless and indigenous people. In addition, 70% of the 1.4 billion extremely poor people live in rural areas and 75% of these rural poor are also smallholders.

In June 2015, a High-Level Forum on Connecting Smallholders to Markets was held which took a look at the policy implications, challenges and lessons learned from concrete examples of how smallholders have found opportunities build sustainable linkages to markets.

At CFS 43 in 2016 CFS endorsed a set of recommendations on Connecting Smallholders to Markets which ensure smallholders can continue to contribute to global food production as well as their own food security and nutrition. These recommendations are intended to support governments’ efforts to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with particular attention to food security and nutrition and the promotion of sustainable agriculture. They also focus on the reduction of inequalities by addressing the challenges behind unequal access to markets, land and other natural resources.

At CFS 46 in October 2019, CFS will hold an event for monitoring the use and application of these policy recommendations , together with two other sets of interconnected CFS policy recommendations 

• Investing in Smallholder Agriculture for Food Security and Nutrition”, endorsed by CFS at its 40th session (2013); and
• Sustainable Agricultural Development for Food Security and Nutrition: What Roles for Livestock?”, endorsed by CFS at its 43th session (2016).

The event will also look into the potential application of CFS policy outcomes, especially for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in the context of the UN Decade on Family Farming and the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.