The interesting Newsletter of Sos Faim Interesting arrives with some contents related to Family Farming:

• - Video on agroecology.
• - The contradictions of AGRA program.
• - Financial Speculation: NGOs make their voices heard.
• - Price volatility: evidence of a producer from Burkina Faso.
• - 20th Anniversary of Sos Faim Luxembourg.
• - When strengthening the rights of women can help combat poverty.

La Revista Agraria. Cepes (Peru). March, 2013.

(In spanish)

The Organizing Committee of the International Year of Family Farming - IYFF, is pleased to invite you to the International Seminar:

The Role of Family Farming in the Construction of the Development with Sustainability

Peak oil - a peak in global oil production when a significant proportion of recoverable resources have been produced - will induce several changes in the way we produce and distribute agricultural commodities, especially food. How will the current excessive and wasteful dependence of agriculture on fossil fuels be affected once oil becomes expensive and supplies decline?

Rising food prices, climate change and food riots have put agriculture high on the international agenda. Too much of the current policy debate focuses narrowly on increasing the volume of food, and assumes that industrial agriculture and biotechnology are the only options for feeding a growing global population. Alternatives do exist. The Asian Farmers' Association for Sustainable Development and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy have produced a new report documenting successful approaches in three countries:

- In Cambodia, the Center for Studies and Development of Cambodian Agriculture (CEDAC) and Farmer Nature Net (FNN) have promoted the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), increasing rice production by 61 percent, bolstering incomes, reducing chemical fertilizers and using water resources more efficiently. The groups have educated local officials on the program's success. Now more than 130,000 farmers are involved, and the Ministry of Agriculture is seeking to expand SRI throughout Cambodia.

- In the Philippines, the local agroecology movement emerged as an element of resistance to the Marcos regime and the dominance of transnational corporations in local production. Since then, national farm networks, working with local NGOs and the faith community, carried out public campaigns to reclaim Philippine agriculture and to develop appropriate organic agriculture standards.

- In Indonesia, members of Boyolali Organic Rice Farmers Association (APPOLI) and the Indonesian Peasant Alliance (API) joined forces to make organic certification processes affordable and culturally acceptable to farmers while meeting consumers' needs. Learning from similar approaches in Brazil, the networks developed a local Participatory Guarantee System to ensure farmers get a fair price, while consumers are able to buy organic goods at lower cost.

Document

Source: www.asianfarmers.org

The following document outlines some of the claims in guard and promotion of family farming for their inclusion in the compilation document RIO +20.
It is based on the recommendations included in the Final Declaration of the "World Conference of Family Farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth" that was held in Bilbao between the 5th and 7th of October 2011.
The Rio +20 Conference seeks to renew the commitment of world leaders for Sustainable Development. The conference content will swing around two themes, the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and the institutional framework for sustainable development.
The development organization World Rural Forum (WRF), whose field of action is solidarity-based rural development based on Family Farming related rural advocacy, launched in 2008 an international campaign aimed at UN request for the Declaration of an International Year of Family Farming. This campaign has been gaining legitimacy in the form of more than 365 formal accessions agricultural organizations, civil society and governments in more than 60 countries around the world.
As of today, October 31, 2011, we face the imminent Declaration by the UN General Assembly, of the International Year of Family Farming in 2014.
In this sense, the FRM considers that the Rio +20 Summit can be a great opportunity to achieve the highest recognition of FF in the legislative framework and political world in the coming years.
The final document of Rio +20 should include the importance of family farming, as linked to Green Economy, as the most viable alternative to eradicate hunger and poverty in a sustainable way in the world

The new wave of land deals is not the new investment in agriculture that millions had been waiting for. The poorest people are being hardest hit as competition for land intensifies. Oxfam's research has revealed that residents regularly lose out to local elites and domestic or foreign investors because they lack the power to claim their rights effectively and to defend and advance their interests.

Source: Oxfam

We are updating and summarizing this report with the last events until September 2010.

We are updating and summarizing this report with the last events. In the world today there are 3000 million people who live in the countryside.