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(The following is an update from Third World Network on the Bonn Climate Change Conference held on June 3-14, 2013. For more updates, go to: http://www.twn.my/title2/climate/bonn.news.11.htm )

Bar Harbor, USA, 18 June (Doreen Stabinsky and Azeb Girmai) – After an inconclusive late-night session on 13 June, negotiations on agriculture at the 38th session of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) ended Friday 14 June with a short set of chairs’ conclusions focused on adaptation.

Parties agreed on a submission process, followed by a workshop to be held at SBSTA 39, on “the current state of scientific knowledge on how to enhance the adaptation of agriculture to climate change impacts while promoting rural development, sustainable development and productivity of agricultural systems and food security in all countries, particularly in developing countries. This should take into account the diversity of the agricultural systems and the differences in scale as well as possible adaptation co-benefits.” Parties will consider the report of the workshop at SBSTA 40 (2014).

The negotiations on agriculture during the Bonn session took place in a contact group chaired by Ester Magambo (Kenya) and Hans Ake Nilsagard (Sweden). The chairs’ conclusions were subsequently adopted by the final SBSTA 38 plenary on 14 June.

The contact group opened on 6 June, with Co-chair Magambo noting that discussions were continuing in what would be a long-term process.

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“I will apply my learnings from the study tour when I go back to Bangladesh. I will develop a business plan for marketing for our primary alliance. I will also request our central leaders to develop a network among youth. I will also develop a plan to improve our organization’s communication and relations with the local government and to resolve problems in our organization.” (Marjina, Treasurer, Mithaganj Krishak Moitree)

“I have learned a lot about how the local farmer organizations in the Philippines utilized their local resources. I will share my learnings with my association in Bangladesh. We will organize more farmers marketing groups.” (Md. Bablur Rashid, President, Bangladesh Farmers Marketing Group Association)

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Represented by its Policy Advocacy Officer Maria Elena Rebagay, AFA attended the second ASEAN Rice Trade Forum convened by the ASEAN Food Security Reserve Board (AFSRB) and the ASEAN Secretariat last June 4-5, 21013 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

ADB, through the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, provided the support to the forum, which had the theme “Rice Self-Sufficiency and Trade.”
Other participants to the forum were around 70 officials, as well as representatives from AFSRB, state trading enterprises, academe, bilateral and multilateral organizations, civil society, and the private sector.

AFA affirmed the position of various ASEAN member states, particularly the rice importing countries (Indonesia and Philippines), on the importance of pursuing rice self-sufficiency while keeping rice trade only as a fall back option to bridge the unmet gap in rice production.

AFA stressed that self-sufficiency can be enhanced through agricultural investments that improve productivity and competitiveness through significant support to sustainable farming practices that increase productivity while maintaining biodiversity.

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The following is an article related to the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF). AFA  is collaborating with the World Rural Forum (WRF) for the IYFF campaign in Asia. For more information, visit the IYFF website.

The International Year of Family Farming and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Tenure an opportunity for indigenous peoples’ engagement

A side event at the 12th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York brought together a panel of FAO experts, indigenous peoples leaders from Asia and Latin America and the Government of Philippines. The panellists presented the critical linkages between the Voluntary Guidelines on tenure, and how inclusive tenure of land, fisheries and forests is at the core of family farming. Quoting Victoria Tauli-Corpuz from the Asian Indigenous Caucus” Indigenous peoples have been doing family farming for millennia, for generations. Indeed whether through communal or family management of the natural resources, family farming is the predominant form of agriculture for sustainable food production practiced by indigenous peoples”.

The event increased awareness on the importance of the Voluntary Guidelines and its significance for indigenous peoples. Andrea Carmen from the International Indian Treaty Council, explained how indigenous peoples actively participated during the formulation. “Indigenous peoples demands and aspirations were incorporated into the voluntary guidelines, reflecting the importance of guaranteeing tenure rights for indigenous peoples, the tenants of traditional knowledge and cultural practices; in harmony with nature and the rights to Free Prior and Informed Consent in accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”

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The following is a guest blog by AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia for the World Economic Forum’s, which is holding the  New Vision for Agriculture initiative in Myanmar this week.

The economy of the Philippines grew 7.8% in the first quarter of this year, outperforming China and the rest of Asia. The media announced the news proudly and happily because this is the third quarter in a row that the country’s GDP exceeded 7%.

However, for those of us working in the agriculture sector, an important aspect of this news is that agriculture contributed only 0.4% of the 7.8% growth, compared to 35% contributed by industry and services. Agriculture accounts for almost a third of the labour force, and it is from the agricultural/rural sector that most of our poor emanate. Thus, it doesn’t look like that the country’s growth has been inclusive.

This situation is being experienced in many developing countries in South and East Asia. While many Asian countries are exhibiting growth rates, still more than 60% of the world’s hungriest and poorest are in Asia (687 million), particularly in South Asia, and 70% of them rely on agriculture for a living.

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In order to provide a venue for sharing, learning and planning common actions on how best to enhance smallholder farmers’ market power, the Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA) is organizing the “Regional Learning Session on Sustainable and Inclusive Marketing Arrangements towards increasing Farmers’ Market Power” on May 9-11, 2013 at The Sulo Riviera Hotel in Dilliman, Quezon City, Philippines.

The event will be hosted by the Confederation of Small Farmers’ and Fishers’ Organizations (PAKISAMA), an AFA member in the Philippines and is being supported by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) in Belgium and Agriterra in the Netherlands.

Around forty delegates coming from AFA’s member organizations as well as other farmer organizations, agri-agencies, non-government organizations and government agencies are expected to participate.

There will be case presentations on small farmers marketing arrangements, inclusive business models, workshops to capture key lessons, as well as a field visit to some local agricultural cooperatives.

Click here for the program

AFA gives international situationer

Tagaytay City, Philippines, April 13, 2013 – Fourteen farmers, five of them women, all members of the National Council (NC) of PAKISAMA (National Confederation of Farmers Organizations), AFA member in the Philippines, together with its national secretariat and regional coordinators, started today a four day orientation workshop in Tagaytay City, aimed to level-off on basic tenets of the organization, roles and functions of each governing and management structure, and to set directions of the organization for the next three years.

The first day of the orientation was spent on getting to know each other better, clarifying expectations between and among different levels of organization(e.g. secretariat, officers, council members) through a team-building exercise (e.g. secretariat, officers, council members), reviewing the core principes of authentic humanism and active non-violence, and levelling off on international and national situation of farmers, agriculture and sustainable development general. AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia gave inputs on the engagement of AFA in international policy advocacy work and Pakisama’s current involvement in it, especially in advocacy for land rights, sustainable agriculture and farmers’ market power, particularly in GAFSP, MTCP and in the celebration of the International Year of Family Farming in 2014.

The new set of NC leaders were elected during its 8th national congress, held last Feb 20-22, 2013 in Quezon City. Like in previous Congresses, the NC leaders were elected by each island region (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao), each region having five slots, with one slot given to a woman and another slot to a fisher. But unlike in previous Congresses, the President , Vice President and the committee heads are now elected from among the NC members. Elected for a three year term were Benedicto “Benny” Aquillo as Chairperson and Ireneo “Rene” Cerilla as President.

The last Congress also celebrated Pakisama’s 26th year, where it gave plaques of appreciation to organizations and individuals who have supported it from its founding years. AFA received one for its contribution to PAKISAMA’s international work.

(The following is a speech delivered by GAFSP CSO Asia alternate representative Raul Socrates Banzuela during a session on Global Agriculture Food Security Program held at Rm c1-100 World Bank Complex, Main Building, Washington DC last April 19. The session was one of the 60 sessions being held, mostly initiated by CSOs, on the occasion of the Bank’s Annual Spring Meetings. AFA is the support organization for the GAFSP CSO Asia representative.)

Good afternoon friends and colleagues. I take this session as an opportunity to dialogue with our northern CSO counterparts and to our friends in IFC and WB Coordination Unit.

I am Soc Banzuela, national coordinator of PAKISAMA, a national confederation of peasant organizations in the Philippines.  We are a member of Asian Farmers Association (AFA), an Asian Confederation of 12 national farmers federations in ten countries in three regions of Asia, providing Secretariat services to the Asian CSO representative to  the GAFSP Steering Committee, Dr. Saing Yang Koma.  I sit as his Alternate and have attended four Steering Committee meetings, with two other CSO representatives one representing African farmers, ROPPA, and the other the Northern NGOs, Action Aid.  I have conducted two missions in Bangladesh, three missions in Nepal, two missions in Mongolia, and one mission in Cambodia over the past two and a half years. Most of the projects funded by GAFSP in 14 countries, six of them are in Asia and the other eight are in Africa,  are still in the start up stage and Bangladesh, one of the early grantees has just recruited and deployed its 700 project personnel to help enhance the production and income of some 350,000 farmers located in two regions.  Thus, we cannot show you much yet in terms of outcomes.

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Dhaka, Bangladesh – The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), a multi-lateral funding mechanism, approved funding for the government’s Integrated Agriculture and Food Security Project (IAPP) last June 2010 for an amount of $50M through its public sector window, aimed to increase agriculture production through technology generation, adoption and water management. The IAPP began implementation in early 2012.

In March 2012, the GAFSP likewise approved a loan to Natore Agro, a subsidiary of PRAN, a big agro-processing company in Bangladesh, for an amount of $5M, through its private sector window, managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group. The loan was part of the total $15M loan to the said company, provided by IFC to “expand production capacity, create 1,800 rural jobs and integrate small farmers into retail supply chains.”

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(While this is a news about USA, AFA shares the hopes of its partner NGO , IATP, regarding the positive impact that the new US food aid policy can bring to the farmers in developing countries in Asia.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget, released today, includes long-overdue changes to the way the U.S. distributes its food aid around the world. These changes will make aid more efficient—up to doubling the bang for each dollar spent—and they will help build local capacity in developing countries, creating markets for local farmers who in turn will help their countries cope with an increasingly volatile international food supply.

For nearly 60 years, U.S. food aid has relied on buying food from American farmers through U.S. corporations to send abroad on U.S.-owned ships. President Obama proposes shifting food aid to programs that also support local and regional procurement of food aid.

“For too long, we’ve been sold the idea that U.S. farmers must feed the world. Instead, to build real food security, we need farmers everywhere, whether in Kansas or Kenya, to be able to feed their own communities and nations. Strengthening that capacity through our food security and trade policies should be the priority,” says Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). “Food aid is the last safety net when all else fails, so it is imperative that funding levels don’t fall, but making it faster, more flexible, more efficient and building a tool to build local markets is a common-sense solution.”

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Opaque private sector deals, increasing demand for land, insufficient consultations and impact assessments, and alleged complicity of powerful interests in land grabs, among others, have contributed to continuing land insecurity in Cambodia. This, in turn, has led to wide-spread forced evictions and land-grabbing among poor farmers, as activists call for transparency in economic land concessions and resolution of land disputes, while government promises a moratorium on new ELCs, a review of existing ones, and a nationwide titling program.

IRIN/Phnom Penh, “Land rights have key role in Cambodia”, Gulf Times, March 16, 2013

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Ms. Ika Krishnayanti (left), API International Relations Officer, emphasizes that farmers should also be recognized as researchers during the policy dialogue on technology transfer for smallholders in Bogor, Indonesia last February 13, 2013 organized by CAPSA. Credit: SATNET Blog.

Representing both API and AFA, Ms. Ika Krishnayanti, International Relations Officer of API, participated in the high level policy dialogue “Technology Transfer for Smallholder Farmers” organized by the Centre for Alleviation of Poverty through Sustainable Agriculture  (CAPSA) in collaboration with the European Union (EU) and the Government of Indonesia last February 13, 2013 in Bogor, Indonesia.

The dialogue aimed to stimulate “discussion among senior officials from agricultural ministries, national agricultural research centres and non-governmental organizations from the Asia-Pacific Region in order to provide options for policymakers to facilitate and enhance the transfer of sustainable agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers and support investments that improve food security, reduce poverty and preserve the environment.”

During the policy dialogue, Ms. Krishnayanti joined other panelists in a moderated discussion addressing the question, “How can advances in science and research better reach smallholders to promote sustainable agriculture?”

She emphasized the “farmers should be recognized as researchers, and not only seen as scientific findings recipients” as she introduced “Ms. Maria Loreta, member of API’s National Board of Peasants and Head of API’s Peasant Women Committee, who recently received an award for her conservation of local species as well as supporting successful rice adaptation made by farmers in East Java to suit saline soil conditions.”

For reports and photos, visit the SATNET Blog at http://satnetasia.blogspot.com/

For the papers and presentations, visit the SATNET Asia website at http://www.satnetasia.org/public/presentation.html

(Reports and photos taken from SATNET Blog)

Participants to the ASEAN High Level Consultative Meeting on “Integrating Nutrition in ASEAN Integrated Framework on Food Security and its Strategic Plan of Action for Food Security,” jointly organized by the ASEAN Secretariat and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), January 29-30, 2013, Bangkok, Thailand. © AFA

Bangkok, Thailand — AFA, through its policy advocacy officer Ma. Elena Rebagay, is participating in the ASEAN High Level Consultative Meeting on “Integrating Nutrition in ASEAN Integrated Framework on Food Security and its Strategic Plan of Action for Food Security.” The meeting is jointly organized by the ASEAN Secretariat and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on January 29-30, 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The overall goal of this consultation is to provide an opportunity for participants to increase their understanding of agriculture’s role in improving nutrition and intensify dialogue and mutual understanding of each sector’s role in integrating nutrition into the ASEAN Integrated Food Security (AIFS) framework and its processes. Specifically, the meeting hopes to:

• Identify common issues of concern, gaps and needs to address food security and nutrition and to raise awareness among participants on particular value and the contribution of agriculture in improving nutrition;
• Increase understanding on the harmonization of policy, institutional mechanism and governance for improved food security and nutrition; and,
• Integrate best practices and approaches for improving nutrition into the AIFS framework and its processes;

During the consultation, AFA asserted the significant role of women farmers as the frontline players in ensuring nutrition and food security at the household level. Women farmers, as producers, mothers and consumers, are in the best position to articulate the gaps as well as solutions to issues and problems related to nutrition and food security. AFA also affirmed the common sentiment among stakeholders that nutrition and food security cannot be addressed by one agency alone, but should be a multi-stakeholder coordinating mechanism that would ensure the integration and harmonization of various initiatives on nutrition and food security. In line with this, AFA called for institutionalized and meaningful participation of farmers’ organizations representing the concerns of women farmers in various coordination mechanisms and other bodies that look into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation programs and policies on nutrition and food security at the local, national, regional and global levels.

The following intervention was delivered by Soc Banzuela, national coordinator of PAKISAMA, AFA member in the Philippines, and alternate CSO-Asia representative to the GAFSP Steering Committee member (alternate), to a Ministerial Meeting of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) , held in Tokyo, Japan, last October 12, 2012, on the occasion of the World Bank’s Annual Meeting. AFA is the support organization of the GAFSP-CSO Asia representative.

“Good evening. AFA is a confederation of twelve national farmers federations in ten countries in three regions in Asia committed to sustainable rural development. I just have three points to say in this event.

Firstly, the urgency of ending hunger cannot be overemphasized given the scandalous magnitude of hungry people we still have. At the end of this hour-long conversation, another 1,040 people, mostly children of landless farmers from Subsahara and Asian countries will have died of hunger or hunger-related diseases. They are among the 870 million people, FAO reported two days ago, suffering hunger. 17 years ago, governments met in Rome in a World Food Summit and committed to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015 from 1990-92 figure which was 824 million. Today, we mourn and are angry. We did not halve but increase by another 46 million the number of hungry people in the world. The tragedy is that the available food in the world is more than enough to feed the population. We have 17 percent more calories per person today than we had 30 years ago despite 70% population increase. We all know the problem and the causes. Harmful economic and political systems and governance allow a few to continue to have control of land, seeds, technology at the expense of millions of farmers.We also know the solutions. There are models already like what Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and lately Vietnam have shown; like what European countries did when they put the farmers at the center of their agricultural and national development ensuring they are well organized into cooperatives or enterprise clusters, have land tenure security, and access to various agricultural inputs and markets. We thought GAFSP was set up to meaningfully and significantly catalyze the replication of these successful models in the developing world.

Secondly, acknowledging that strategic response to hunger and poverty is multi-pronged, GAFSP is one funding facility that requires a serious look given its design, current practice, and strategic potential. In terms of design, its being country-led and multi-stakeholder provide opportunities for projects to address the real issues of the farmers. In its governance, what struck me the most is its commitment to inclusion. Together with two other representatives of producer organizations from Africa and NGOs from Northern countries, I attended four Steering Committee meetings and was impressed by the way Board meetings were managed. The distinction of voting and non-voting members has never been invoked and we felt our voices as farmers and as NGOs were heard in a consensus-building process. We were happy that most of our asks have been responded adequately most important of which was the development of a Participation Guidelines as integral component to the Project Assessment Score card. We conducted 11 country missions to inform and prepare farmer organizations and NGOs and so far CSO platforms have been set up in four recipient countries in Asia and are excited to engage in the program.

Finally, the demand is so great but the supply of available fund is so low. We want to end hunger of 870 million people. Perhaps we all need the spirit of Spiderman. With great powers come great responsibility. Let us all help build the GAFSP fund. Thank you.

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Bangkok, Thailand – AFA, through its policy advocacy officer, Ms.Lany Rebagay took note of the overwhelming recognition of the role and contribution of smallholder farmers/producers and their concerns over the major challenges confronting smallholder farmers/producers in the discussion so far in the two-day (October1-2, 2012) High-Level regional consultation on policies to respond to high food prices being held in Athenee Plaza.

She mentioned that said recognition must be translated into more institutionalized participation of smallholder farmers/producers in various bodies and policy-making/program-designing processes on food and nutrition security.

To this point, she shared AFA’s encouraging experience in the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) supported by G20 through the management of World Bank.

AFA is one of the CSO representatives from Asia in the GAFSP Steering Committee.

Through AFA’s participation in this body, AFA was able to facilitate the uploading and downloading of smallholder farmer/producer feedback on the project proposal submitted by various governments to GAFSP.

In Mongolia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Tajikystan and Krygztan, AFA was able to facilitate a forum among smallholder farmers, CSOs and governments to discuss the proposed GAFSP projects with the end in mind of making it more responsive to the needs and realities of the target rural communities.

Through the forum, AFA was able to link smallholder farmers to governments and supervising entities (e.g. FAO, ADB, etc.) towards building partnership for food and nutrition security initiatives.

With greater access to information and policy-making processes both at the local/national, regional and global processes, farmers are more able to contribute to food security program designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation leading to higher chances of addressing the bottlenecks confronting smallholder as they endeavor to increase food production.

Encouraged by its positive experiences in GAFSP and other national policy and program engagements, AFA calls on FAO, ADB, IFAD, WFP and national governments to provide institutionalized participation of smallholder in various bodies and decision-processes concerning food and nutrition security such as in AMIS, APTERR, SAARC Food Bank and other proposed council (Seed council).

AFA also supported the recommendation put forward by our CSO colleagues particularly on the access of smallholder farmers to land and other productive resources (water, seeds, energy, credit) as well as increasing the role of smallholder farmers/producers in the food value-chain.

AFA also supported the call to provide more support space for women and young farmer in all policies and programs for food and nutrition security.

Building successor farmers is a critical concern to ensure the sustainability of farming.

More importantly, women farmer are the frontline players in ensuring food security at the household level, thus their significant and meaningful participation should be recognized and supported.

Bangkok, Thailand — While big agribusiness companies invest a lot on research and development in chemical farming, government and national agricultural research institutes should balance this by placing making investments on sustainable farming technologies.

Farmers made this call during the “Asian Farmers’ Regional Consultation on Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D)”organized by the Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA) and the Asia Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions(APAARI) last September 10-11, 2012 at Princeton Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.

The consultation was attended by 22 participants, including 16 representatives from 11 national farmer organizations (FOs) in 9 countries, as well as Dr. Raj Paroda, Executive Secretary of APAARI, and Thomas Price, Senior Officer of the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR).

During the meeting, FO leaders presented their key initiatives and challenges in their AR4D work.
As a result of the consultation, FO leaders identified key AR4D priorities, the initiatives they undertake, the support they further need, and the principles that will guide further partnerships on AR4D.

Rich and healthy exchanges on the relevance of pushing for sustainable agriculture relative to the growing needs of the population for safe and healthy food ensued.

The results of the consultation will serve as AFA’s inputs to the upcoming second global conference on AR4D, dubbed GCARD2, to be held in Uruguay in October 2012.

AFA actively participated in the 1st ASEAN Rice Trade Forum in Siem Reap, Cambodia last June 19-20, 2012 through its delegation composed of Ms. Chey Sivat and Ms. Kong Sokchhoin, FNN Board Member and Program Coordinator respectively, together with Ms. Lany V. Rebagay, AFA’s policy advocacy officer.

The ASEAN Rice Trade Forum sought to serve as a platform for promoting coherent and coordinated policy actions on rice trade to advance the goal of food security in the ASEAN region.

The Forum brought together representatives of the ASEAN Member States and various stakeholder groups to collectively
• share, analyze and disseminate rice market information;
• identify areas of cooperation and policy coordination to mitigate or avoid extreme rice price volatility; and
• determine long-term and strategic policy reforms for the sustained development of regional rice trade.

The theme of the first forum focused on managing the risks of extreme rice price volatility caused by policy shocks and supply distortions through coherent and coordinated policy actions.

The forum included evidence-based policy analysis using tried and tested tools, presenting the findings to improve the analysis and recommendations, filtering the recommendations, and forwarding the recommendations to the Special Senior Officials Meeting of AMAF.

The AFA delegation, together with other CSO participants, raised the following points during the forum:
• small-holder rice producers do not necessarily benefit from increased price of rice. It is mostly the traders/consolidators who usually benefit from any price hike;
• reliance on trade to solve food security is not reliable. Investment on small-holder agriculture focusing on sustainable agro-ecological farming practices has been recognized by various studies as a strategic way forward to ensure both food and nutrition security while protecting the environment and contributing to poverty reduction;
• while we may agree that lack of policy coordination among ASEAN member-states caused the food price hike in 2008, we also recognize other factors mentioned by the HLPE convened by FAO after the food crisis in 2008, such as, the impact of climate change on food supply, increasing demand for bio-fuel, etc. Thus, solutions to food price volatility should not only respond to restoring confidence in trade in the region through a “deep trade” policy in the form of reducing member-states’ rice self-sufficiency target in exchange for a guaranteed rice import is not a sustainable solution;
• expand the ASEAN Food Security Reserve Board (AFSRB) to include participation of organized regional federation of small-scale women and men farmers to ensure that field experiences are generated and inputted in any discussion on food and nutrition security;
• provide support for meaningful participation of small-scale farmers in the next Rice Trade forum through provision of slot for presentation and discussion.