“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)

These were some of the insights and learnings shared by farmers participating in the “Bangladesh-Philippines Farmer Leaders Exchange on Building Strong Farmers’ Organizations in Bangladesh:

A Study Tour to the Philippines,” conducted last June 1-7, 2013 in the Philippines. The planning and implementation processes of the study tour was a  tripartite partnership between  (1)  PAKISAMA, a national confederation of peasant movement in the Philippines;  (2)  FAO Bangladesh led by Md. Mahmud Hossain, National Team Leader of the Technical Assistance Component of the Integrated Agriculture Productivity Project ( IAPP-TA), and Md. Hemayet Uddin, Deputy Project Director of the IAPP, a project of the government of Bangladesh  being funded by the Global Agriculture Food Security Program (GAFSP);  and  (3) AFA, which is the support organization for the CSO-Asia representative in GAFSP.

Twelve farmer-leaders, four of them women, from various federated groups (at national and province levels) were selected by the FAO Bangladesh team to participate in this study tour. They represented farmers groups who have exhibited a certain development and maturity in organizational processes. They came to learn about PAKISAMA’s   processes, initiatives, challenges and successes in federation building and in engaging the government for pro-farmer policies and programs, with the hope that they can gather insights and lessons which will help them strengthen their organizations back home.

The farmers, together with five members of the FAO facilitation team, conducted a three-day field visit to the following sites: (1) MESAFED, a provincial federation affiliate of PAKISAMA in Oriental Mindoro, which has projects on IDOFS (integrated, diversified, organic farming systems), commodity cluster organizing, production of bio-compost fertilizer and eco-tourism; and (2) SIDC, a multi-awarded agricultural cooperative in Batangas City with 7,852 regular and 9,583 associate members. They held a brief visit to the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF), the oldest national organization in the Philippines. The participants had a one day discussion on PAKISAMA’s s organizational processes, which included a short presentation on AFA’s regional work, presented by AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia. They also visited Mr. Crispin Aguelo, former President of PAKISAMA and currently farmer representative to the Board of Directors of the Land Bank of the Philippines.

1) Provide an overview of the facilitating and constraining factors on the entry of agricultural and land investments in the communities in different Southeast Asian contexts;
2) Assess the negotiation terms and processes to see if they are transparent, inclusive and participative, and if they conform to the prevailing legal/regulatory policies and standards (both national and international);
3) Analyze current and potential impacts of these investments on the communities in relation to land tenure, livelihood, basic services, food security and the environment, and develop community safeguards based on the people’s perspectives;
4) Recommend appropriate actions, whether by reforming policy or accountability mechanisms and structures, to address the flaws and gaps in regulation and in the negotiation terms and processes and identified (potential) impacts at community, national and international levels.

For small producers, the regional public hearing aims to:

1) Provide a venue for land grab victims in Southeast Asia to present and discuss their grievances and expose accountability of responsible institutions on land grab cases;
2) Identify remedies for communities and demands for responsible institutions to address the violations of rights;
3) Develop a set of safeguards over land investment projects based on the perspectives of affected communities and sectors that will be useful to other communities going through the same issues;
4) Facilitate a sharing and discussion among communities and experts on negotiation strategies that worked or could be used to reclaim their land rights or improve their capacity to deal with land investments.
5) Provide input to future legislation or amending existing laws regulating or governing land and agricultural investments
With support from OXFAM’s GROW campaign, ANGOC will organize the regional public hearing (i.e., People’s Land Grab Tribunal) with partners from communities and institutions in six Southeast Asian countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Other groups and sectors will be invited based on their role in the tribunal and their contributions to the formulation of the community safeguards as a checklist for smallholders to guide them in future negotiations and assess land deal agreements.

AFA Policy Advocacy Officer Lany Rebagay summarized the video presentation and emphasized the negative impact of irresponsible land-based investments which lead to the displacement of smallholder farmers, loss of biodiversity due to the introduction of unsustainable package of production and processing technologies including the unequal sharing of risks and benefit caused by unbalanced negotiation in the contracting process. AFA also stressed that small-scale farmers can effectively contribute to food security and poverty reduction if they are given security over their rights to productive resources like land, water and seeds.

Click here to watch the video

Click here for Lany’s powerpoint presentation

Click here for the program

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.

In addition, AFA also pointed out the need for (1) provision of community-based irrigation systems, appropriate extension services, and reduction of post-harvest losses through improvement of warehousing facilities, farm-to-market roads and other infrastructure; (2) diversification of food sources that will ensure safe and nutritious food choices that are accessible and affordable through awareness raising measures and support to production and promotion of culturally appropriate food staple substitute; and, (3) promotion of community-based food reserve system to ensure community resilience amidst food price volatility and climate change.

For more information, click on the following:

ADB News

ASEAN News

AFA’s Chairperson Uon Sophal, together with FNN Executive Director Pan Sopheap, attended the 11th general assembly of Agricord held last May 30-31, 2013 in Helsinki, Finland. AgriCord is the network of “agri-agencies”, non-governmental organisations for development cooperation with structural links to the farmers’ and rural members’ organisations in their home countries. It provides support to farmers’ organisations in developing countries, covering both capacity building and concrete operations.

The general assembly discussed statutory matters and accepted FFD (Finnish agri-agency for Food and Forestry Development) as a new member of AgriCord, bringing the total number of member agri-agencies to ten, which are backed by farmers organizations in Europe (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden), in Canada (Quebec), in Asia (seven countries) and in Africa (Senegal).

The general assembly also discussed the future of Agricord through a seminar entitled “AgriCord beyond 2013 – dealing with the new challenges of farmers’ organisations in developing countries.”

Different issues were presented through video messages by Prof. Tim Lang (Centre for Food Policy, City University, London), Mr. Jean-Luc Francois (Agence Française de Développement), Mr. Ibrahima Coulibaly (Coordination Nationale des Organisations de Producteurs du Mali), and Mrs. Sophia Murphy (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minnesota/Washington).

Sophal gave a reaction to Murphy’s video message.

Other farmer leaders who gave reactions to the other video presentations were Mr. Marcos Rochinski, Secretary General of FETRAF (Federação dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura Familiar) in Brasil and
Mr. Samba Gueye, President of CNCR (Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux) in  Sénégal.

In his intervention, Sophal called on Agricord to prioritize:

1. Development with equity, including right and access to land and other resources by smallholders;
2. Investment in family farming in order to ensure sustainable development, with particular support to organic and ecological agriculture and conservation of species;
3. Investment in young farming families through new innovation and increased processing capacity of farmers and linkage to market;
4. Investment in rural youth through provision of agricultural land and soft loan capital investments with low interest rates; and,
5. Development that is focused on ensuring food security by strengthening the capacity of farmer producers through participation and collaboration with all stakeholders.

“The event has really been relevant to AFA and Asian farmers, because the donors (funding agencies), especially AgriCord, wanted to hear the real voices of farmers organizations and the best experiences that have been done by farmers. Most of the 15 points of AgriCord’s Strategic Plan are really relevant to what AFA and Asian farmers have been doing and plan,” said Sophal after attending the general assembly.

“The most important result of the event is that AgriCord and other funding agencies have agreed and valued the roles of farmer organizations as a potential vehicle to drive and ensure world food securities,” he added.

Click here for more information about the 11th Agricord general assembly

Click here for more information about Agricord

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”

Read the full article

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.

Read the full article

AFA, as member of the Civil Society Mechanism-Southeast Asia Working group (CSM-SEA WG), co-organized the Southeast Asia CSM Sub-regional Consultation: Development of Principles for Agricultural Investment, Voluntary Guidelines on Land, and other Priority Issues of CFS last May 23-25, 2013 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The consultation is one of the first of the regional CFS RAI multi-stakeholder consultation. The consultation shall also  revisit other areas for priority action such as the follow through of the Voluntary Guidelines on Land at the national level, and discussions on CFS, Biofuels, and the Global Strategic Framework. The workshop was organized to:

1. Create a deeper understanding of the issues confronted in the sub-region on agricultural investments among CSOs and social movements in preparation for the 2013 rounds of consultation on the rai principles;
2. Identify strategies to effectively influence the implementation of the CFS sanctioned Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Land Tenure and other Natural Resources;
3. Discuss other issues identified as priority agenda by CFS for 2013 to include Climate Change and Biofuels, among others;
4. Strengthen the SEA Sub-regional CSM through clearer understanding of the CSM, its value added to on-going sub-regional CSO efforts on common agenda on food security and nutrition, and by strengthening the SEA CSM coordination structure and processes

On May 13, 2013, AFA also conducted its own internal learning session on RAI to prepare its farmer leaders as they engage in RAI consultation processes. AFA leaders noted that small-scale farmers should actively promote its vision of a sustainable and inclusive agricultural investment which recognizes the needs and contribution as well as fair benefits of small-scale farmers from any responsible agricultural investment. The primacy of access and control over productive resources (land, water, seeds, energy) by small-scale farmers was articulated by farmer leaders as key to any responsible agricultural investment. In addition, AFA farmer leaders articulated that the participation of small-scale farmers in developing the responsible agricultural investment (RAI) is not only due to the fact that its the small-scale farmers who are negatively affected by agricultural investments but more importantly because small-scale farmers are major investors in agriculture in the absence of needed appropriate support from both public and private sector.

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.

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.

But what I would like to do this afternoon is to show you a 5-minute video on the possibilities of GAFSP. The video is about our 18-year experience  on how we successfully engaged government in a food security project in the Philippines. The video will try to demonstrate the key issues we push in the GAFSP Board room and in our field missions. (video showing of PECUARIA).

I have three points to make.

Firstly, on project development. as shown in the video, we have been insisting in GAFSP  three things:

One, it is important for farmers to have control, access, and ownership of the basic food security endowments such as land, seeds, production capital, and agro-ecological production technology.

Two, it is important to have access and control over the market.

and three, it is important to have strong cooperatives, farmers organizations, to be able to achieve the first and the second.

These are  possible in the GAFSP but project development is a key challenge.

The GAFSP project framework document already has  provisions allowing country proponents to include these components in their respective project proposals. But project development, as we all know,  is in itself a battlefield. While country-led, very few proposals received so far from IDA countries have had the benefit of CSO input, thus, most of the projects that are eventually funded have no land tenure component and are not strong in ensuring agro-ecological approaches in enhancing production nor in building capacity of farmers’ organizations to perform higher level intervention such as in marketing ,  post-harvest /agro-processing, value-addition and governance . GAFSP provides for multi-stakeholdership and encourages CSO participation in various levels and processes. A new call for proposal for public sector window has been opened and will close on June 5. But it has been quite a challenge to organize CSOs in IDA countries to engage their respective governments in coming out with proposals that would include the above-mentioned components.. We hope we can inform our CSO counterparts in IDA countries to do exactly this. And once the projects are funded in accordance with these themes, that we encourage them to actively participate in the implementation by insisting their participation in the national project steering committees, in monitoring and evaluation,  and in providing technical assistance to farmers and their organizations.

The second point I want to make is on GAFSP Governance.  GAFSP I think provides one of the most innovative governance structures among the current global programs and has shown its commitment to multi-stakeholdership and inclusivity not only by including CSO participation at the highest policy making body such as the Steering Committee but by ensuring a tradition of consensus decision-making in Board processes, thanks to the previous and current leaderships.  But there are elements that we agree must continue to undergo improvement such as the cohesion of the private and public sector windows, the loan and grant components, and CSO participation in the private sector window processes.  Given the 14 funded projects and the forthcoming projects, what can be done to ensure the private sector window, providing concessional loans, will be able to build on the  public sector  window-funded projects  and help build smallholders power not only in production arena but also in the market as well? These are exactly the themes we would like to discuss in our forthcoming meeting on the 22nd of April. Laura has shown to us the direction of IFC, of working with an institution that supports farmers cooperatives producing fairly-traded agri-ecological products. To me this  is already a big step  at the right direction even as we CSO representatives hold the view that perhaps IFAD should be the one to handle the private sector window given its experience and commitment to working with agricultural cooperatives and that focus on production must address more the domestic food security needs of IDA countries. I believe we will be able to reach an arrangement acceptable to all stakeholders.

The third and final  point I want to make is about Synergy and Responsibility.  GAFSP was born out of the 2008 global food crisis. The number of hungry people grew by  60 million people last year even while governments promised in 1996 World Food Summit to halve the 900 million figure of hungry people  by 2015. This magnitude of hungry people in Sub-sahara and Asian countries, which are largely rural and female, is just so scandalous given we know that another third of the global population is obese and over-fed and that global budget for the war industry ridicules global budget for food security.  GAFSP I believe, given the stakeholders involved, is in a unique position to make a big difference. GAFSP can provide the global standards and leadership in effectively waging war against hunger and poverty. But we barely raised five percent of the original 22 billion dollars original target for the facility. And the demand is so huge.

We would need to continue to improve ourselves and find innovative ways to bring about greater synergy and cooperation among various stakeholders.  I don’t think this is a choice. It is an imperative. And I think CSOs, especially, northern NGOs, may just have to take greater leadership in continuing to remind and engage  especially donor governments and multi-lateral institutions, who are key players in a funding facility such as GAFSP, to be like Spiderman, to exercise greater responsibility in proportion to their powers, to reach out to the hungriest and the  poorest and to collectively facilitate their empower ment process leading to   transformed lives and their societies.

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.”

Implementors of the two projects were not aware of the each other’s project. Meanwhile, at the Steering Committee level, its members were in a GAFSP continuous improvement process, and one major issue currently being reviewed is the relationship, coherence, coordination and governance of both the public and private sector windows of GAFSP.

It is in this context that AFA, together with Action Aid Bangladesh and Kendrio Krishok Moitree, AFA’s member in Bangladesh, conducted a consultation in Dhaka last April 4 at the Action Aid office in Dhaka. The consultation brought together , for the first time, key stakeholders of GAFSP in Bangladesh: 20 representatives of IAPP, PRAN, IFC, and FAO, who is handling the technical assistance component of IAPP, and CSOs who have been tracking the progress of GAFSP in the country since 2011, when the first concept note was approved. A lively discussion took place where participants raised questions, made clarfications and shared concerns and issues related to both projects’ implementation and relationship with each other.

The consultation was part of the GAFSP CSO mission conducted April 3-4 by an AFA team composed of Mr. Soc Banzuela, National Coordinator of Pakisama, AFA member in Philippines and alternate CSO-Asia representative to the GAFSP SC, and Mr. Amirul Islam, Program Manager of AA-B and anchor staff for KKM. The mission was supported by funds from the Coordinating Unit of GAFSP.

AFA will provide a full report of the mission at the end of the month.

[High-Level Consultation on Hunger, Food Security and Nutrition in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. April 4, 2013. Madrid, Spain. (C) IISD.]

Thus stated UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, when he formally accepted the result of the Global Consultation on Hunger, Food Security and Nutrition in the Post 2015 Development Framework, at the closing ceremonies during the High Level Meeting in Madrid, Spain on April 4. The meeting was the third and final phase of the Global post 2015 consultation on the said theme. Participants responded to a working document entitled “Food Security and Nutrition for All: A Vision and Building Blocks for a Global Agenda,” which represented the results of the first two phases of the consultation.

The participants during the high level meeting said that the common vision of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in a sustainable manner by the year 2025 is both a moral and political imperative and called for a bold and effective action to achieve this vision. They acknowledged that the critical agents of change are women and men small producers and their organizations, family farmers, fishers, livestock keepers, forest users, workers, entrepreneurs, and indigenous peoples, as well as consumers at all levels.

AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia, in her intervention, suggested to include in the “building blocks for a development agenda” ensuring rights to fisheries, forests and seeds, in addition to land rights; to prioritize investments on sustainable agro-ecological approaches and in motivating the youth to go into agriculture; to establish market rules that are fair to small-scale producers, and to strengthen at all levels policy and program coherence among all departments related to food security and nutrition. She mentioned that the celebration for the International Year of Family Farming in 2014 may be an opportunity to strengthen such coordination.

The meeting was co-hosted by the Governments of Spain and Colombia, and led by FAO and WFP. It was attended by representatives from national governments, intergovernmental organizations, UN systems, private sector, NGOs and producer organizations such as La Via Campesina, World Farmers Organization, Pan African Farmers Organization, World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers, and the Asian Farmers’ Association.

Click here for the Joint Chair and Co-leads Synthesis Report

Click here for the Remarks of the UN Secretary General

Click here for the Vision and Building Blocks for the Global Agenda

Click here for AFA intervention

Click here for the Summary Report from IISD

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.”

Read more

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

Click here for related news and information

The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) joins the South East Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) and other network partners in the campaign against the commercialization of Golden Rice, as well as other GMOs, in the Philippines.

In line with its desire to achieve rice self-sufficiency for the country, the Philippine government has declared 2013 as the National Year of Rice. While this may be good on the surface, it is quite alarming that part of the efforts to achieve rice self-sufficiency involves the commercialization of Golden Rice, a genetically modified rice variety that is said to be vitamin A-enriched.

In addition to concerns over risks to health, environment, biodiversity, and infringement of farmers’ rights and livelihood, AFA believes that the best way to eliminate Vitamin-A deficiency is by eating a variety of nutritious foods that are usually found in diversified and integrated farming systems by smallholders, and which the government should support instead.

Thus, AFA joins hands with SEARICE and its network partners in issuing a call against Golden Rice commercialization by voicing objections, demanding a moratorium, and ultimately, halting its cultivation.

We ask friends and partners to uphold the right to safe food and the protection of farmers and the environment by supporting this campaign.

Click here to sign the petition at ipetitions.com 

Click here to sign the petition at change.org

Click here to download a primer on Golden Rice by SEARICE

[“Making agricultural investments more inclusive: building a framework for action”. February 28, 2013. London. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).]

This was one of the main points emphasized by AFA in a recent roundtable discussion organized by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) last February 28, 2013 in London.

In the meeting entitled “Making agricultural investments more inclusive: building a framework for action,” AFA Policy Advocacy Officer Lany Rebagay said that small-scale farmers could have greater bargaining power if they deal with investors on a collective approach rather than on individual basis

AFA joined the first panel to articulate the perspective of small-scale women and men farmers on important elements that a prospective investor should include in their community engagement and on concerns related to embedding inclusiveness in contracts specifically on important elements that should be included in an investment contract that will ensure inclusion of smallholder producers.

Ms. Rebagay articulated the principle of free Prior informed consent (FPIC) as a key principle that prospective responsible agricultural investor should abide. She also articulated the primacy of genuine peoples’ participation in all stages of agricultural investment.
Equitable sharing of risk and benefits as well as concern for protection of biodiversity through the use of sustainable production and processing technologies should likewise be assured in the design of any agricultural investment.

On the issue of ensuring inclusiveness in contracts, she pointed out that technical and legal assistance is important support needed by smallholder producer that government in partnership with CSOs should made available to facilitate fair negotiation in contracting process.

In addition, informed decision by the community/smallholder can be best achieved with access to information made available through transparent process, of making relevant investment document at the public domain. Moreover, mechanism for regular review, monitoring and redress of grievance should be clearly stipulated in any contract.

Particular concern on land-based investment and gender was also discussed during the workshop. Participants articulated the need for clear government regulation that will protect land rights of smallholder farmer including reform in some customary land rights that marginalizes women.

The round-table workshop was attended by representatives from CSOs, research institute, private sector, government, intergovernmental bodies (FAO, IFAD).A follow-on meeting on March 1, 2013 was attended by interested groups from the workshop. The follow-on meeting identified some key action points and areas for future cooperation.

[Meeting of the World Consultative Committee for the International Year of Family Farming 2014. January 29-30, 2013. Rome, Italy. Copyright: WRF]

During the meeting, the WCC members agreed that (1) the year belongs to everybody, and that IYFF-2014 is an opportunity to work towards common goals while recognizing and appreciating diversity; (2) farmers organizations will lead the IYFF-2014 and will lead the WCC; (3) national level is the key level of action; (4) all interested organizations will be invited to participate in national level committees and actions.

The WCC is the civil society process for IYFF while another process is being undertaken by FAO, which was mandated by the UN to take charge of the celebration of the family farming year. A meeting took place between WCC members and FAO and IFAD to discuss ways of working together. The WCC will be in charge of ensuring that there are activities related to IYFF-2014 at global level, while regional organizations in WCC will lead and ensure the existence of regional and national level initiatives.

Inside the WCC, a task force has been created to define the global action plan and the launching of the year. AFA is part of this Task Force, together with  regional FOs COPROFAM and ROPPA-PAFO, and with international organizations Oxfam Intl, Slow Food International, AsiaDHRRA and of course, WRF, who will function as the CSO global coordinator for the IYFF-2014 campaign.

Click here for UN declaration of 2014 as International Year of Family Farming

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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)