2nd UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4): Farmers’ organizations: Key enablers in transforming food systems

2^nd UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4)
July 27-29, 2025 – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Stakeholders Action Session
Farmers’ organizations: Key enablers in transforming food systems
28 July 2025 | 15:00-16:20 | CR5 (115 seats)

Session background

The session will bring together producer organizations, smallholder representatives, policymakers, and financial actors to explore how producers, through their organizations, can actively shape decision-making processes, equitably access resources, and hold systems accountable. It will also examine the contributions and solutions provided by farmers’ organizations in building sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food systems. 

A key focus will be on what meaningful producer participation looks like in practice, including:

• Institutionalized inclusive governance frameworks, with permanent mechanisms that also include – in addition to small-scale Producers – Youth, Indigenous Peoples, Women, Pastoralists, Fisherfolk, and SMEs at national and international levels;
• A shift from consultation to co-creation, where producers are involved in shared decision-making, participatory monitoring, and the use of multistakeholder accountability tools;
• Farmers’ contributions and solutions, such as agroecology and sustainable agriculture, are supported;
• Improved access to finance, with a focus on reshaping funding mechanisms to directly reach and respond to the needs of small-scale producers.

By centering producers in the conversation, this session aims to identify actionable strategies that move beyond token participation toward systemic inclusion and co-leadership, thereby paving the way for more equitable and resilient transformations in food systems. 

Context:

Despite their central role in feeding the world and managing vital natural resources, producers—farmers, fishers, pastoralists, herders, and forest-dependent communities—are often marginalized in food systems governance. They frequently face limited access to finance, are excluded from policymaking spaces, and rarely see concrete benefits from global commitments. Core concerns such as land tenure, participatory governance, improving livelihoods, restoring soil and water health, and promoting agrobiodiversity—including neglected and underutilized species—remain insufficiently addressed in many national food systems pathways.  The worsening impacts of climate change further threaten their livelihoods. 

The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) has called for bold action and innovative solutions to transform the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed. Central to this transformation is the critical role of farmers’ organizations in building sustainable and inclusive food systems. But, potential for further progress hinges on democratic governance and decision-making processes.  Power asymmetries exist and play a crucial role in determining who has access to resources, who makes decisions, and ultimately, who benefits. Therefore, to truly transform food systems, navigating and addressing power is essential. 

For many farmers organizations and networks, agroecology presents a powerful opportunity to create an enabling environment for small-scale farmers to collectively address the multiple challenges they face, and participate in program development and decision-making processes. The emergence of farmers’ organizations and agricultural cooperatives has been a collective response to longstanding challenges faced by smallholder farmers and fishers, including exclusion from policy development processes. Evidence from the CERES 2030 report confirms a positive correlation between membership in farmers’ organizations and increased farm incomes. Similarly, a 2013 FAO study emphasized that organized farmers are better equipped to tackle inequality and marginalization. Therefore, investing in and strengthening these organizations is not just strategic but crucial for building equitable, climate-resilient, and sustainable food systems.

Session objectives: 

• Amplify the voices and priorities of producers by providing a space for them to share lived experiences, challenges, and proposals for food systems transformation.
• Identify pathways for meaningful producer participation in policy design, implementation, and accountability—shifting from consultation to co-creation.
• Explore solutions to improve producers’ access to finance and resources, with a focus on tailoring funding mechanisms to the realities of small-scale and marginalized producers.
• Highlight gaps and propose corrective measures to align national food systems pathways with producers’ needs, especially on income, natural resource stewardship, and agrobiodiversity.
• Generate actionable recommendations to inform partnerships, institutional mechanisms, and accountability structures that center producers in global and national food systems governance.