Today, I received Olivier De Schutter’s final report to the UN Human Rights Council after his six-year term as Special Rapporteur. Throughout his term, he has been calling for the world’s food systems “to be radically and democratically redesigned”, primarily through agroecological farming practices.
“Objectives such as supplying diverse, culturally-acceptable foods to communities, supporting smallholders, sustaining soil and water resources, and raising food security within particularly vulnerable areas, must not be crowded out by the one-dimensional quest to produce more food,” he urged in his report.
This year (2014) is the International Year of Family Farming which aims to “raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas. The goal of the 2014 IYFF is to reposition family farming at the centre ..”
More than 90% of farms are run by an individual or a family and they produce about 80% of the world’s food occupying around 70-80% of farm land
Food tank has created an excellent 1.5 minute video on how family farmers across the globe are contributing to a nourished, healthy planet and how you can too. It’s just great to see more global thinkers coming together and agreeing on what is necessary to move forward into a new future for agriculture and food.
