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Given the right opportunities, women farmers take leadership roles and do it well. This is one conclusion that came out strongly in a research validation workshop and reflection session of women farmer leaders held in the Philippines recently.

Eight women farmers belonging to PAKISAMA gathered at Ciudad Christia, Montalban, Rizal last December 16-18, 2011 in order to validate the initial findings of a research project on women leadership and reflect on their experiences as leaders in their communities and organizations, and to draw lessons from these experiences.

With the support of IFAD, WOCAN, Agriterra, and AFA, the validation and reflection session was held as part of a four-country Rural Women Leadership project, which in the Philippines is being implemented by PAKISAMA.

The women leaders were joined by staff of PAKISAMA, AFA, and an independent researcher.

The lessons drawn by the research project will be shared in a learning event to be organized by WOCAN in Nepal in January next year.

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With 925 million people going hungry every day, the food insecurity crisis in the South cries out for solutions for long-term and sustainable food security.

Thus, this year’s Global South-South Development Expo, being held at the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy on December 5-9, brings together country, civil society, private sector and UN agency representatives to allow sharing of success stories and exploration of new ideas to achieve food security.

The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Development joins the expo as it taps into South-South Cooperation, which is based on solidarity and sharing of solutions and expertise among developing countries.The expo features a series of “solution exchange forums” covering: agriculture, food security and capacity development; social protection, agriculture and food security; environment, agriculture and food security; nutrition, HIV/AIDS, agriculture and food security; and health, agriculture and food security and agribusiness, food security and education.

These fora aim to help countries move towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals through the sharing and discovery of solutions that are adapted to each country’s realities.The expo also includes a Leadership Roundtable on food security moderated by BBC news presenter Zeinab Badawi.

AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia participates in this roundtable, which is being webcast live.

Click here to go to the Global South-South Development Expo website

Click here to watch the live webcast of the Leadership Roundtable on food security

A forum-workshop entitled “Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation of Small Scale Farmers and Fishers in Southeast Asia” was held in Quezon City, Philippines, last Nov 24-25. The workshop was co-organized by Oxfam International’s East Asia office, Southeast Asia Fisheries for Justice (SEAFISH), a regional alliance of NGO and fisher groups, and Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), a regional alliance of national farmers organizations.

AFA participants included Oun Sophal and Meas Somica from Farmer and Nature Net (Cambodia), Lutfiyah Hanim from Aliansi Petani Indonesia, Rene Cerilla from PAKISAMA (Philippines),Vicky Serrato and Esther Penunia from the secretariat.

Small scale farmers and fishers are trying to adapt to climate change as much as they can. In this workshop, participants shared various adaptation strategies. Here are some of what they shared:

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Entitled “Farmers’ Voices, Farmers’ Choices: In the Time of Climate Change, “this video features interviews with AFA women leaders and results of the regional consultation on climate change conducted by AFA. It shows the gender dimensions of food security in the time of climate change.

International Climate Change Negotiations: Ensuring Support for Adaptation and Mitigation Measures in Smallholder Agriculture, Vol. 2 No. 4, December 2009.

In December 2009, women in Sayphusi, a village in the province of Attapeu in Laos, were busy washing dried mud from their paddy grains. They had very little to eat, and the muddied paddy – the only remnant from their rice crops which were damaged by the storm that struck their village in October – was the only food available. The storm caught them unaware and swept away their homes, crops and livestock.

Laos is a landlocked country and is very rarely visited by typhoons. But lately, farmers have noticed a lot of changes in the season. Like many countries in Southeast Asia, they can no longer rely on the natural flow of the seasons to guide their planting. It rains when it is not supposed to rain, and many times, the dry period stays longer and is much warmer than expected.

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(This paper is the output of the participatory research done by AFA through its commissioned researcher Ms. Riza Bernabe and includes secondary as well as primary data gathered from village, district and national consultations in Cambodia, Timor Leste, Indonesia and Laos that were held in 2009 and 2010.)

Addressing the problem of hunger in a world where food production systems, particularly in developing countries, are being eroded and undermined by climate change is one of the most important challenges of our time. Studies by the Food and Agriculture organization (FAO), Oxfam and the Asian Development Bank, among others, underscore the significance of climate change impacts on agriculture and food production (FAO 2007, Oxfam 2009, ADB 2009).

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Natural/organic food mean to our lives and nature friendly, especially it reflects a responsiblity of producers for themeselves and for customers

(written and translated into English by Pan Sopheap, FNN)

Karnataka, India — Farmer and researcher representatives from 12 countries paid a 4-day field visits plus a one-day reflection workshop in Karnataka state, south of India, in order to expose ideas and experiences on food sovereignty.

The event hosted by Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), in cooperation with La Via Campesina (LVC) from November 2-6, 2011. The participants learned vast experiences from the Indian farmers regarding food sovereignty through application a method of Zero Budget Natural Farming and had also exchanged experiences with other participating countries.

Farmer leaders from 9 national level organizations in South and Southeast Asia, as well as 3 partner countries (researchers) from Latin America, Europe and North America shared their experiences and analysis of a common issues and challenges of the farmers and came up with some recommendations for the farmers, governments, inter-government bodies, and civil society organizations.

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Siem Reap, Cambodia — Farmer leaders from 12 Asian countries gather in this city, famous as the gateway to Angkor Wat, in order to discuss challenges facing small farmers and ways on how to address them.

Hosted by Farmer and Nature Net (FNN), in cooperation with the Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA), the “Regional Consultation on Hot Issues Confronting Asian Farmers: Land, Unstable Food Prices, Financing for Adaptation to Climate Change and 26th AFA ExeCom Meeting” will be held on November 12-15, 2011 at the City River Hotel.

Farmer leaders from 10 national level organizations in Southeast Asia, as well as 2 partner organizations from South Asia will share their experiences and analysis of the issues and help come up with policy recommendations for governments, inter-government bodies, and civil society organizations.

AFA member organizations include API (Indonesia), PAKISAMA (Philippines), FNN (Cambodia), SKP (Thailand), VNFU (Vietnam), KAFF & WAFF (Korea), TDFA & TWADA (Taiwan), and AINOUKAI (Japan), while partner organizations include KKM (Bangladesh) and Nepal (NLRF).

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An organic farmer from FNN shows his bitter gourd harvest. Many small farmers in Cambodia are struggling to secure access to land, while improving food security through sustainable agriculture practices.

by Pan Sopheap, FNN

Chang Mai, Thailand — Mr. Mao That, FNN representative, attended the conference on land rights in Chang Mai last November 9-11, 2011.

Participants to the conference shared their experiences from different countries on land rights issues and how they are responding to them.

A conference statement was issued on the need to raise awareness on land rights and to speed up land titling to secure tenure of small farmers, as well as the implementation of land reform.

By Karen Hansen-KuhnYang Saing Koma, (CEDAC/FNN); Tony Santos, PAKISAMA; Ika Krshnayanti, API
Published October 14, 2011

Rising food prices, climate change and food riots have put agriculture high on the international agenda. Too much of the current policy debate focuses narrowly on increasing the volume of food, and assumes that industrial agriculture and biotechnology are the only options for feeding a growing global population. Alternatives do exist. The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Development and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy have produced a new report documenting successful approaches in three countries:

- In Cambodia, the Center for Studies and Development of Cambodian Agriculture (CEDAC) and Farmer Nature Net (FNN) have promoted the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), increasing rice production by 61 percent, bolstering incomes, reducing chemical fertilizers and using water resources more efficiently. The groups have educated local officials on the program’s success. Now more than 130,000 farmers are involved, and the Ministry of Agriculture is seeking to expand SRI throughout Cambodia.

- In the Philippines, the local agroecology movement emerged as an element of resistance to the Marcos regime and the dominance of transnational corporations in local production. Since then, national farm networks, working with local NGOs and the faith community, carried out public campaigns to reclaim Philippine agriculture and to develop appropriate organic agriculture standards.

- In Indonesia, members of Boyolali Organic Rice Farmers Association (APPOLI) and the Indonesian Peasant Alliance (API) joined forces to make organic certification processes affordable and culturally acceptable to farmers while meeting consumers’ needs. Learning from similar approaches in Brazil, the networks developed a local Participatory Guarantee System to ensure farmers get a fair price, while consumers are able to buy organic goods at lower cost.

Agroecology and Advocacy: Innovations in Asia is available at www.asianfarmers.org and www.iatp.org.

Click here to download the one-page flyer

Click here to download the full document

Excerpt from the Strategy Paper:

“The past nine years, 2002-2010, have seen us struggling to take root and make ourselves known and heard at the international, regional, and national levels as a regional alliance of small scale women and men farmers’ organizations (FOs) in Asia. Slowly but surely, our efforts are paying off.

Our alliance, the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), began in 2002 as a coming together of farmers’ organizations (FOs) that are partners of AsiaDHRRA (Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Asia), a regional NGO network. Leaders of these FOs participated in the five farmers’ exchange visits AsiaDHRRA organized in 1998-2002 with funding support from MISEREOR and the ASEAN Foundation. In these visits, we learned of our common aspirations, experiences, and struggles. We, therefore, decided to forge an alliance in order to effectively and efficiently address our common issues, and fight for a better quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

From an informal gathering of five national FOs from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and Philippines in 2002, under the facilitation of AsiaDHRRA, we have grown into a fully registered, autonomous alliance of ten FOs from eight Asian countries by December 2010. Our five additional members are one from Cambodia, one from Japan, two from Taiwan, and another one from South Korea. ”

Click here to download the AFA Strategy Paper 2011-2015 in PDF

Excerpt from the Brochure:

“We are a regional alliance of national federations and organizations of small scale women and men farmers and producers.

We were established in 2002 after a series of farmers’ exchange visits (FEVs) organized by our strategic NGO partner, AsiaDHRRA (Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Asia).

In  these  five FEVs, conducted over three years, we saw the great need to come, share, learn and act together towards our common desire for a better quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our farming communities.

AFA invites national farmers’ organizations as members and works with NGOs  in facilitating the formation of national farmers’ organizations and in continuously building their capacities.

It convenes a General Assembly every two years and an Executive Committee meeting every semester.”

Click here to download the brochure in PDF

The following article was written by Mr. Jukichi Ishizawa, a 78-year old organic farmer from Fukushima, Japan. His place, Kouriyama City, is located 60 kilometers away from the Daichi nuclear plant that was damaged by the tsunami and is emitting nuclear radiation. He has been farming in Fukushima for the 61 years and is a member of Ainoukai, an organization of organic farmers in Japan, which is a member of AFA. (Translated into English by Abe Chatterjee Shantonu, also an Ainoukai member.)

Summer in Fukushima has come a week early after a brisk rainy season which brought perfect conditions for growing vegetables and rice. I grow rice using natural farming methods, and every other year, my crop is attacked and weakened by rice water weevils, so much so that it is impossible to make out the rice plants among the fast-growing weeds. This year it is different. The various tests that the prefectural government had to carry out to measure the radiation levels from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident led to delays in rice-planting. Apparently, this delay allowed my crop to be spared the weevil infestation, so this year my rice plants are growing proud and tall, dwarfing the weeds. I can only pray that the bountiful harvest is not contaminated by radioactive substances.

My vegetables too, are growing well. Cucumber vines are growing vigorously, and the summer crop of eggplants, bell-peppers and tomatoes has not been damaged by pests. Sadly, with no market to sell these vegetables, I will have to rethink my plans for the next few years.

It is thanks to the tireless efforts of people involved in and supporting organic agriculture that I am still somehow selling my produce. All the same, it is disheartening to hear customers who have supported us for the past 35 years say that they cannot buy my vegetables anymore because they are afraid of radioactive contamination.

As a member of Ainoukai, I have always been proud of the fact that my produce is safe and delicious, and that my customers place their trust in me. It is therefore worrying for me that I cannot guarantee the safety of my crops and dispel the anxieties of my customers because of the accident at the nuclear facility.
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(Paper presented by Esther A. Penunia, Secretary General, Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), to the UN expert group meeting on “Enabling rural women’s economic empowerment: institutions, opportunities and participation?” organized by UN Women in cooperation with FAO, IFAD and WFP on Sep 20-23, 2011 in Accra, Ghana.)

This paper would like to discuss how FOs can empower small scale women farmers, the issues and challenges FOs face in their work to empower their women members, as well as some priority issues for intervention. In so doing, the paper will cite some examples from the following (a) from the experiences and observations of this writer as she works for and with FOs in Asia who have both women and men, and women-only as members; (b) the outputs of the “Special Session on Promoting Womens’ Leadership and Rural Producers’ Organizations” organized by IFAD last February 12-13 in Rome, Italy ; and (3) the current activities being undertaken through the Rural Women Leadership Project, being implemented by Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and NRM (WOCAN), with support from IFAD.

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AFA Secretary General Ma. Estrella Penunia will attend the UN women expert group meeting on ‘Enabling rural women’s economic empowerment: institutions, opportunities and participation’ to be held in Accra, Ghana, from 20 to 23 September 2011.

The expert group meeting is part of the preparatory process for the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (2012), which will consider as its priority theme ‘The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges’. The expert group meeting, organized by UN Women in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) will contribute to a fuller understanding of the issue and assist the Commission in its deliberations.

The EGM will explore a wide range of strategies that can enhance the economic empowerment of rural women, and will focus on the following critical areas:
• Rural women’s strengthened role in agriculture;
• Rural women’s access to productive resources, technology markets and financing;
• Decent and productive employment and income-generating opportunities for rural women;
• Infrastructure and service-delivery that benefit rural women;
• Rural women’s role in natural resource management and climate change adaptation;
• Effective institutions and enabling policy environment that promotes gender responsive rural development.

(The following is an article written by a Japanese farmer for the magazine of Ainoukai, an AFA member in Japan.)

The earthquake suddenly struck at 2:46 pm on the 11th of March.

I was on the second floor of the local agricultural cooperative’s office with about 20 other people, and we hid under the desks and prayed for the tremors to subside. The skies which had been sunny till then suddenly turned gray and large flakes of snow started to fall. It was a very eerie experience, as if the devil himself had appeared. The men on the first floor called out for us to come down, but because there were people as old as 80 among us, we decided to stay under the desks. After the first shock passed, we made our way down to the store, only to be confronted by the sight of the store in complete disarray.
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Civil society organizations concerned with rural development have been engaging ASEAN in order to pursue agriculture, fisheries and people-centered development, which promotes the well-being of the rural poor and marginalized sectors, especially farmers, fishers, and indigenous peoples.

In the process, they also aim to develop institutionalized mechanisms for the regular consultation and participation of farmers, fishers, indigenous peoples, rural women, and rural development NGOs on matters affecting these sectors.

AFA had another opportunity to push forward this agenda in the recently concluded ASEAN Special Seniors’ Officers’ Meeting for the 32nd ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry (SSOM-AMAF) held at Angkor Era Hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia last August 8-9, 2011.

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From the Introduction:

The Farmers Fighting Poverty programme has reached the end of its first term. This report therefore not only covers the activities and results of 2010, but provides an overview of all achievements throughout the programme. The report aims to give a thorough picture of what we have done in order to strengthen farmers’ organisations between 2007 and 2010.

As in last year’s report we put emphasis on achievements, and start from there. After that the activities (advisory services and projects) and inputs (financial means) will be discussed. We do not stop at giving just the figures, but try to look beyond that to explain the impact of our interventions.

The impact really becomes clear at the personal level of the stories harvested among the participants in the programme: an impressive number of 4.589.643 people. Some stories are taken up in the report, as well as examples of project reports, excerpts of descriptive profilings and special services reports, to exemplify the figures that are presented.

We recommend to also consult the AgriCord activity report 2010 and Evidence on Impact 2011. The first provides more detail on the basic aspects of the programme, such as which projects were implemented in which work area. The second document elaborates on the issue of the evidence gathered from stories and evaluations on the impact of our work

Clikc here to download the report

The following article was written by Mr. Jukichi Ishizawa, a 78-year old organic farmer from Fukushima, Japan. His place, Kouriyama City, is located 60 kilometers away from the Daichi nuclear plant that was damaged by the tsunami and is emitting nuclear radiation. He has been farming in Fukushima for the 61 years and is a member of Ainoukai, an organization of organic farmers in Japan, which is a member of AFA. (Translated into English by Abe Chatterjee Shantonu, also an Ainoukai member.)

There is a saying that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away”. These were the words of General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in charge of the occupation of Japan, when he was relieved of his duties by the American President on grounds of insubordination.

In the article I wrote for the March and April issues (The Age of Agriculture: 60 Years as a Farmer) I mentioned my desire to work in my fields until the day I am unable to move anymore. However, I fear that the recent happenings may force me to go the same way as General MacArthur. I may need to disappear from my fields.

It was a pleasant, sunny spring afternoon on the 11th of March, 2011. I had taken my truck into the fields in order to harvest carrots. It was then that I suddenly heard a deep rumbling, and the ground started shaking under my feet. My truck was bounced about like a toy on a trampoline, and what little water there was in the irrigation canal leapt to and fro. The tremors made it hard to stand without support, and lasted for nearly 8 minutes. As the quake subsided, the sky to the west became overcast and it started snowing with strong gusts of wind. As the wind quieted down, I could only wonder at the fury of Nature that I had just witnessed.

The radio in the car repeatedly blared out warnings of the imminent approach of tsunamis more than 7 meters high. Glancing at the town, I could not clearly make out the extent of the damage, so I could only pray that it was limited as I headed for home. The road back was full of obstacles, as fallen gate-posts and concrete walls blocked the road. I felt the true extent of the damage then.
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AFA participated in an ASEAN food security conference held in Manila, Philippines last July 18-19, 2011.

The conference aimed to enable the private sector to participate in efforts to address food security in the region and focused on food production, post-harvest, and rural-market linkages.

AFA was represented by Mr. Uon Sophal (FNN President) and Mr. Pan Sopheap (FNN Executive Director) from Cambodia; Mr. Vicente Fabe (PAKISAMA National Council Chairperson) and Mr. Raul Socrates Banzuela (PAKISAMA National Coordinator) from the Philippines; Ms. Victoria Serrato (AFA Marketing Ofifcer) and Ms. Ma. Estrella Penunia (AFA Secretary General).

Mr. Sophal delivered a presentation on the the topic “Improving Food Security through Improving Productivity: Perspectives from Producers,” while the rest made interventions during the sessions.

Through the conference, an action agenda was developed for discussion at the first-ever ASEAN Private Agrifood Sector Consultation with the ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF), which will meet on October 3-8, 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Click here to download Uon Sophal’s powerpoint presentation.

Click here for more information about the conference.