Posted on behalf of the Norwegian Agriculture Cooperatives and Norwegian Farmer's Union
Federation of Norwegian Agriculture Cooperatives and Norwegian Farmer’s Union congratulate the High Level Panel of Experts with the report, and welcome your invitation to consult the report. This work is of great, focusing on the significance of smallholder agriculture challenges and what framework is needed to improve the ability for production within smallholder agriculture.
The report recognizes the heterogeneous nature of smallholder sector, showing diverse support needs. The wording smallholder is a key notion in the report. We would however urge the Panel to include the heterogeneity to a greater extent, and to be more specific about which smallholders are addressed. All smallholder agriculture has challenges which need specific framework concerning for instance access to farmland and markets.
Ensuring access to a well functioning market for smallholder agriculture is important, as recognized in the report. The farmer must be ensured a fear share of the surplus. Farmer owned cooperatives have an important role to play. Protection of the national market is also crucial to many smallholdings.
We support the report on the necessity of providing secure access to land and natural resources. However, we miss an emphasize on the importance of farmer’s ownership to the land.
We appreciate that the report mention cooperatives specifically, however, we would like the report to emphasize stronger the important role of agriculture cooperatives, for instance in empowering the farmer in the food chain.
We would also like the report to stronger underscore the role of family farming, and how this model of ownership has proven to be a very efficient model, securing continuity and efficiency.
A large part of agricultural production is carried out by smallholdings. This report reminds us of the importance of this work, and is a good platform for further elaborations on this issue.
Best regards,
FSN Forum Team