Family Farming is when agriculture production, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production is managed and operated by a family, and is predominantly reliant on the family labour of both women and men. Many people may not know that family farms account for 70% to 80% of the world's farmland and produce more than 80% of the world's food.

Food systems face increasingly pressing challenges due to climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the need to provide food to a growing global population. Family farmers hold unique potential to promote transformative changes in how food is grown, produced, processed and distributed, which enhances territorial development. This is why “family farming” was chosen as one of the topics of the meeting of the United Nations Agriculture and Food Security Theme Group in China (UNTG-Ag).

On June 24th, the UNTG-Ag had its second meeting of the year. Representatives from the UN’s Rome-based Agencies (FAO, IFAD, and WFP), other related UN agencies, academia, private sector, and family farming practitioners gathered to discuss the development of family farming and the challenges it currently faces.

In his opening remarks, the UN Resident Coordinator Mr. Nicholas Rosellini emphasized that the UNTG-Ag plays an important role in bringing together agriculture and food security experts from the UN agencies in China and maximizing the specialities of these agencies, especially the UN Rome-based agencies which have made great efforts in areas such as food security, food safety, nutrition, and South-South Cooperation. The China Representatives of FAO, IFAD, and WFP stressed the importance of family farming in sustainable agriculture development, and also shared their current work priorities in family farming. 

At the meeting, participants discussed various policies and practices for promoting sustainable development of family farming, which included the way to create a more supportive policy environment for the development of family farming, how to help family farmers to engage in more ecologically sustainable agricultural production, and how to connect the market more effectively, and how to give access to finance to young entrepreneurs.

In addition, the family farmers also brought fresh fruits and vegetables and other agricultural products from their own farms, and a small market was opened to the participants during the coffee break for buying these healthy and delicious vegetables.

Led by the FAO China Office and the WFP China office, the UNTG-Ag organizes quarterly meeting to discuss and share information on different topics in the field of agriculture and food security in China and beyond. The group’s first meeting this year in April discussed China's 2019 No.1 Central Document and the African swine fever epidemic.