Three important decisions were made during this General Assembly.
First, AFA elected its new officers for a two-year term: Than Swe, President of Agriculture and Farmer Federation Myanmar as Chairperson; Altantuya Tseden-ish of National Association of Mongolian Agricultural Cooperatives as Vice Chairperson and Aleksander Temirbekov of National Union of Water User Associations of Kyrgyz as Treasurer, Jumer Marcadia of PAMANAKA-PAKISAMA was elected young farmers representative in the AFA Execom. Esther Penunia was re-appointed Secretary-General.
Second, the GA approved two new members of AFA: the Kyrgyz Association of Forest and Land Users (KAFLU) and the Philippine Family Farmers’ Agriculture-Fishery-Forestry Cooperatives Federation (Agricooph).
Third, the GA approved the strategic plan of AFA for 2021-2025. In this strategic plan, AFA will promote six priority agenda: rights to natural resources; sustainable, integrated, biodiverse, climate-resilient ecological agriculture in farms, fisheries, forests; cooperative/business development; fair treatment, rights and equitable opportunities for women farmers, and attracting the youth to agriculture and AFA as a democratic, transparent, trustworthy and accountable learning organization. These six thematic agenda will be pursued by six interrelated strategic program interventions on movement building, policy advocacy, capacity building, MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning), business development servicing, and internal governance. Both thematic agenda and strategic interventions kay identified targets and desired outcomes.
The AFA GA is conducted every two years. The next one will be in 2022.
The AFA GA was preceded by two regional virtual events. The first was a “Regional Exchange and Knowledge Management Fair for Young Farmers” co-organized with AFOSP and FFF, held October 2-3, 2020. Here, nine participating AFA member organizations who have conducted national training with young farmers on Advocacy for Sustainable, Resilient, Gender Sensitive, Agri Forest-Based Livelihoods presented the highlights of their training as well as the plans they have developed as individual young farmers and as national youth committees of their organizations. During this event, the winners of the Young Farmers Dance Challenge, organized through the AFOSP project, were announced. Also, the strategic plan for the thematic agenda on Attracting the Youth to Agriculture was finalized during this meeting with the young farmers.
The second was a regional exchange for women farmers, titled “Empowering Women Farmers as Key Actors in Building a Sustainable, Healthy and Food Secure Future”, held October 4, 2020. Representatives of women farmers committees of AFA member organizations exchanged experiences on how they were affected and how they responded to the challenges brought about by the covid-19 pandemic. As part of the peer-to-peer exchange, Ms. Smita Bhatnagar of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India shared its Master Trainor Approach, while Ms. Lucky Begum of Kendrio Krishok Moitree (KKM ) of Bangladesh shared its Seed Enterprise Initiative. The strategic plan for the thematic agenda on women farmers was finalized during this meeting as well.
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Below is the schedule of activities. Click the hyperlink for a more detailed program of each activity.
| 2-3 October 2020 | Young Women and Men Farmers As Advocates for Sustainable, Resilient, Gender Sensitive Agri-Forest Based Livelihoods: Young Farmers for Farms in Forests, Forests in Farms |
| 4 October 2020 | Empowering women farmers as key actors in building a sustainable, healthy and food secure future |
| 5 October 2020 | AFA General Assembly |
| 6-7 October 2020 | Sustaining Family Farming in Asia through inclusive, farmer-driven approaches |
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