FAO participates in the Chilean Family Farming week at Expo Milan

August 4, 2015, Milan – Officers from FAO participated in the activities, yesterday and today, of the Chilean Family Farming Week, organized by the Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario de Chile (INDAP) within the framework of the Expo Milan 2015 global fair.

The activities, that took place during five days, aim to sensitize and revalue the rural world and rural culture as a source of national identity and belonging, promoting cultural expressions and highlighting its economic potential towards the improvement of the quality of life of Chilean farmers and to build-up of an inclusive and cohesive society.

Smallholder farmers, leaders of peasant organizations, along with the Minister of Agriculture of Chile and the Director of INDAP participated in yesterday’s opening of the activities.

Today, a roundtable between Italian and Chilean cooperatives took place in the auditorium of the Chilean pavilion. During this opportunity, representatives from the peasant sector of both countries exchanged their experiences and projects for cooperative’s work according to each country’s reality.

FAO officials that were present during the event highlighted the crucial role of cooperatives and producers organizations towards the generation of employment opportunities and poverty reduction in rural areas and towards the improvement on food and nutrition security, as well as their importance in the implementation of social protection, school feeding and improving access to markets for smallholder farmers governmental programmes in different countries.

Numerous positive experiences all around the world have shown that rural institutions, such as producer organizations and cooperatives contribute to national food security strategies by helping smallholder farmers, fishermen, livestock breeders, foresters and other producers to have access to public policies and information, as well as the tools and services they may need. The cooperative approach allows them to increase their food production, to commercialize their goods at better conditions and to generate job opportunities while they are improving livelihoods and increasing world’s food security.

FAO has committed to assist governments in the creation of enhancing conditions that allow cooperatives and producer organizations to consolidate, grow and thrive through the improvement of the existent policy and regulatory frameworks, and to promoting further opportunities for exchanging experiences between agricultural cooperatives from different countries.