Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Small-scale farming

Reports and briefs

Rural-urban linkages and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the role of rural-urban linkages in fostering inclusive and sustainable food systems and how these contribute to rural transformation and, more broadly, to sustainable and inclusive development. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, the paper analyses the interdependencies between...

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Reports and briefs

E-agriculture in action

E-agriculture or ICT in agriculture holds great promise in providing access to innovative solutions to many challenges faced by smallholder resource-poor farmers. Access to the right information at the right time makes a great impact on the livelihoods of communities involved in agriculture and...

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Rebuilding West Africa's Food Potential

FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) just released a publication dedicated to West Africa food potential which intends to support the decision process in the region. This comes at a time when many countries in the region have embarked on implementing their national agricultural strategies derived from the CAADP process. Indeed, after the food crisis of 2007-2008, West African countries took measures to create the enabling environment for greater investment in agricultural development.

Rebuilding West Africa’s Food Potential, presents a range of successful case studies and recommends priority areas for action. According to the study, boosting productivity, fostering competitiveness and ensuring that small-scale farmers have greater access to markets are key for West Africa to realize its full agricultural potential.

For more information, access the full publication: Rebuilding West Africa's Food Potential: Policies and market incentives for smallholder-inclusive food value chains

Smallholders dataportrait

The smallholder farmers' dataportrait is a comprehensive, systematic and standardized data set on the profile of smallholder farmers across the world.
It generates an image on how small family farmers in developing and emerging countries live their lives. It is about putting in numbers, the constraints they face, and the choices they make so that policies can be informed by evidence to meet the challenge of agricultural development. Currently, the data portrait provides information for 14 countries.

The State of Food and Agriculture 2014

More than 500 million family farms manage the majority of the world's agricultural land and produce most of the world's food. We need family farms to ensure global food security, to care for and protect the natural environment and to end poverty, undernourishment and malnutrition. Goals can be thoroughly achieved if public policies support family farms to become more productive and sustainable; in other words policies must support family farms to innovate within a system that recognizes their diversity and the complexity of the challenges faced.

The State of Food and Agriculture 2014: Innovation in family farming analyses family farms and the role of innovation in ensuring global food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. It argues that family farms must be supported to innovate in ways that promote sustainable intensification of production and improvements in rural livelihoods.

National Seminar on Rural Youth in Family Farming: Need and Challenges

National Seminar on “Rural Youth in Family Farming” at Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour on December 18-19, 2014.

The seminar is an attempt to bring together the stakeholders like researchers, academic institutions, industries, government agencies, farmers, NGOs etc. together on a single platform. In order to address the need and challenges posed in the successful implementation of family farming in a holistic manner putting an added emphasis on current trends and aspirations of the youth in relation to family farming, the seminar aims to provide a forum to raise the awareness of the needs and potential of the youth in family farming along with the constraints that they face, and ensure that they have access to technical support along with the creation of synergies for sustainability. The strengthening the legitimacy of farmers organization, youth clubs and their capacity to effectively represent and defend the interests of family farming and sharing lessons learned and successful pro-family farming policies, and capitalizing relevant knowledge on family farming from various corners of the country are key features of the seminar.

Call for articles: Nutrition values and family farming

The ILEIA quarterly Farming Matters  has issued a call for papers on: Nutritional values and family farming.

The last issue of Farming Matters for 2014 will focus on how family farming and agroecology support the nutrition of family members and the wider community.

The deadline is September 1st, 2014

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