Asian Countries Commit to Protect Family Farming Culture
Southeast Asian countries join forces to raise awareness in the Decade of Family Farming 2019 – 2028
April 08th, 2019
Innovation, access to rural credit – particularly for women – and improvements to rural social protection programs are important tools to help family farmers in Southeast Asia improve their livelihoods and become more food secure, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said today.
Representatives from countries of Southeast Asia are meeting in Jakarta to discuss ways to help smallholder farmers achieve better food security and improved livelihoods and protect local culture in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger (SDG-2) before the 2030 deadline. The meeting is convened by the Government of Indonesia.
Family farms produce the vast majority of the food that makes it to our dinner tables. They produce 80 percent of the world’s food and are the biggest sources of employment globally, yet many family farms are themselves food insecure and extremely poor.
Family farming is about linking production to families, to schools and to communities and cultures. It is based on local knowledge. It sustains productivity on, what is often, marginal land, and provides local consumers with fresh food, including poultry, livestock, fish, fruits and vegetables, along with other staple foods, which are critical to achieving good nutrition.
