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

Venue: San Jose. Costa Rica

On 6th August the CATIE and the National Association of Rural Women Producers Agribusiness (ANAMAR) in Costa Rica developed an informative workshop on the Campaign of the International Year of the Family Farming Campaign (IYFF); the same addressed issues related to food security, the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity, gender and social responsibility issues that were provided by Dr. Galileo Rivas, Dr. Reinhold Muschler, M. Jackie Siles, M. Sc Felicia Sc Granados. The activity was attended by Mrs Gerardina Pérez, President of ANAMAR who emphasized the synergy between CATIE and ANAMAR towards IYFF Campaign. The workshop was attended by 15 producers who showed great interest in the topic raised. At the end of the event, participants expressed the need to empower the role of women in family farming processes and agreed with CATIE to develop a publication related to rural women producers in Costa Rica. Also, they explore the possibility of potential collaborations between CATIE and ANAMAR on issues of urban agriculture, leadership and coaching. Finally, ANAMAR unionized organizations, said they will manifest their support to IYFF Campaign. (Contacts: Dr. Galileo Rivas, grivas@catie.ac.cr).

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We have incorporated the issue of Artisanal Fisheries to the Concept Paper of the Campaign for AIAF, at the request of Fishermen's Associations.

In the words of Jacques Diouf, the General Director of (FAO), "the time has come to re-launch farming, and the international Community should not squander the opportunity".

For our organisations, coordinated by WRF, the celebration of an International Year dedicated to family farming would create a unique opportunity to develop means, which would assure in the medium and long term, a prosperous and sustainable family agriculture development and, as a result, in the rural areas on all the continents, especially, in the developing countries.

Updated version of the Conceptual document´s Summary, including Traditionnal Fishing.

During the trip was held a preparatory meeting of the American Continental Meeting of the FFIY Campaign, reaching important agreements. In this sense, the Continental Meeting will be hold in Brasilia in late November 2010 in the framework of the XIV REAF, relying mainly with the participation of many representatives of agricultural and rural development NGOs. Organizers will be the WRF and COPROFAM (Confederation of Family Farmers Expanded MERCOSUR), with the collaboration of the REAF's Brazilian Section's Secretariat.

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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.

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The preparatory meeting for the IYFF Campaign American Continental Gathering will be held in Mar del Plata (Argentina) on May 31. The American IYFF Continental Gathering will take place later this year.

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The trip continues through Central America an the representative of World Rural Forum reach Nicaragua. In Managua, there has been a meeting with representatives of the 4 guilds of the PDRR, there the representative of the WRF made a new presentation of the Campaign. At that meeting the local representatives take the compromise of getting the accession of the Minister of Agriculture of Nicaragua.

On 23 March the Indian city of New Delhi will host the Asian Continental Meeting to mark the International Year Campaign for Family Agriculture.

The Declaration of the first Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean, held on 4 and 5 March in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, decided to support the Campaign for the International Year of the Family Framing.

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Marc Dufumier, professor of Comparative Agriculture and Development, has given an interview to Telerama.fr, there he analyzes the situation of French and European agriculture.

Representatives of the World Rural Forum are visiting Costa Rica and El Salvador to raise awareness of the Campaign for the International Year of the Family Farming. The first stop was Costa Rica where they held in an open forum about this event, involving representatives of the Costa Rican Government, RUTA Program , PDRR, CONACOOP and ANAMAR.

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With two weeks remaining to the Asian Continental Meeting of IYFF Campaign, more than 250 organizations have given their support to the Campaign. Recent accessions have come from Malawi, Uganda and Romania.

The organization Kenya Biodiversity Coalition has issued a press release denouncing the importation of 40,000 tons of GM maize from South Africa to Kenya.

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Yesterday concluded in Rome on 3rd Farmers' Forum, which met peasant organizations around the world to agree on a text to be submitted to the Governing Council of IFAD, which begins today, February 17, in Rome. This text was included an appeal to the International Year of Family Farming.

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The Campaign for the International Year of Family Farming has received numerous accessions in recent weeks, including most notably that of the Basque Development NGO Coordinator. This has been published in the coordinator's website.

Yesterday we celebrated the last day of the Parallel Forum of Civil Society on Food Sovereignty, a very beautiful experience of warmth, common purpose, a plurality of inputs and sensitivities, which greatly strengthened the coordination between organizations and networks worldwide. The strength and legitimacy of the large peasant family, pastoral, fisherman, Indian world has increased.

We received some news about the events that have been celebrated on the International Day of Rural Women.

The municipalities of Colindres, Torrelavega, Villacarriedo, Medio Coeyo, Ruente and Polanco have joined the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farmer. Other 7 city councils from Pakistan joined that in last September.

Ecumenical Center for Development and Social Action NORTH -CEDEPAS NORTH is a Peruvian NGO founded in 1984, which has numerous cooperation projects in the north of Peru.

French Agricultures and International Development-AFDI, a French rural organization, joined the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farms.

The Desk Coordinator for Asia of World Rural Forum, Miren Larrea, has returned from her trip to the continent with the satisfaction of having had fruitful meetings with various local organizations, also have begun to shape the projects of the Asian Regional Meeting of International Year of Family Farming scheduled for 1-4 December, in New Delhi, capital city of India.

The National Council for Sustainable Rural Development-CONDRAF is promoting two major events for the 10th of October at 14 hours, at the stand of the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) at the Sixth National Family Farming Fair (to be held in Marina da Glória in Rio de Janeiro).

Haurralde Fundazioa, a NGO from the Basque Country which aim is the defence of rights of childs and women, joined the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farms.

French Committee for International Solidarity-CFSI, a group which is composed of14 NGOs, joined the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farms.

The network of Peasant and Producers organizations in West Africa (ROPPA) has members in 13 different countries and deserves a great international relevance. ROPPA is a member of the IFAD´s Farmers Forum, and has been recognized as a dynamic and trustable federation. We have received also the adhesion of the East Africa Farmers´ Federation, a growing and reliable force. Both Federations have a very relevant presence in their respective regions.

During the course of the last session of the Expert Forum on Food Security, the FRM took the floor to promote to a wide audience of ambassadors, experts, officials from FAO and IFAD, NGOs, representatives Universities, etc.. Campaign for the AIAF.

Article published in the journal INTA written by Tomás Loewy.

Yesterday, Monday 16th November, was an intense day of work in the Forum parallel of Civil Society for Food Sovereignty. Through the four thematic groups and the groups of women, young people and country people and the construction of Alliances, we continued defining our contribution to the final document which will be submitted to a vote today, 17th November, the day of the conclusion of our work. This final document will be officially presented to the World Summit on Food Security of the governments in the FAO headquarters tomorrow 18th November.

We have in our hearts and our minds all the organisations which support the campaign in favour of the International Year of Family Farming, trying to assure that their common proposals form part of the aspirations of the greatest number possible of associations and institutions. It is of the greatest importance that the UN endorses Family Farming: peasantry, indigenous, pastoral and community farming, and by extension, craft fishing, by declaring an International Year of Family Farming as a sign of recognition of the efforts of the hundreds of millions of country women and men to produce the food that humanity needs.

With the Ministry, have joined the campaign, Candido Iturriaga Foundation and the Belgian NGO Broederlijk Delen (Share as siblings).

Agro-alimentary Cooperative consists of 16 Regional Federations and Unions of Agricultural Cooperatives (FUTs) and Sergacan (Cooperative of 2nd degree from Cantabria). At the meeting of its Board of Directors held, on September 22 in Madrid, decided to join the Campaign for an International Year of the Family Agriculture.

Ms. Miren Larrea, Asia Desk Coordinator of the World Rural Forum, is visiting Pakistan and India, for the preparation of the IYFF Asia Continental Meeting, which will take place during the first week of December in New Delhi. The aim of the December Encounter is to assess and to strengthen the Campaign of the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF).

The G-8's $20 billion initiative on smallholder agriculture, launched at the group's recent summit in L'Aquila, Italy, is a potentially historic breakthrough in the fight against hunger and extreme poverty. With serious management of the new funds, food production in Africa will soar. Indeed, the new initiative, combined with others in health, education, and infrastructure, could be the greatest step so far toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed effort to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by half by 2015 .

Manitese is an Italian NGO founded in 1964, which has numerous cooperation projects in the south and the north of the world and experiments with lifestyle based on sustainability.

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Lettre Hebdo

On 28 and 29 January the Senegalese city of Dakar was the scene of some workshops for preparing the African Continental Meeting of the Campaign of the International Year of the Family Farming.

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The representatives of COPROFAM and AFA, farmers organizations, have asked to Farmers' Forum to support the Campaign for the International Year of the Family Farming.

Our last IYFF report was dated December 2009. We would like to update it now, February 2010, to catch up the strong dynamics of the IYFF Campaign.

José Antonio Osaba, Campaign Coordinator IYFF, held on January 25 in Paris several meetings with representatives of Dossier et Débats pour le Développement Durable-4D, French organization working for Sustainable Development; International Federation of Agricultural Producers-IFAP and the heads of African and Asian sections of the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development-CCFD Terre Solidaire.

On 15 October there will been celebrate worldwide the International Day of Rural Women. That is why the World Rural Forum has been receiving contributions on this topic.

The Ministry of Agriculture of the Central American country of El Salvador has officially joined the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farming. In parallel, last December joined CONDRAF, National Council for Sustainable Rural Development, and CONSEA, National Council for Food Security and Nutrition, both from Brazil.

In the coming days the Campaign Coordinator for the International Year of the Family Farming, José Antonio Osaba, is going to hold several working meetings in Paris and Dakar.

The Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development, French NGO for development, joins the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farming.

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ATOL Provide Methodological Support Development Initiatives-ATOL is a Belgian NGO founded in 1972, which has numerous cooperation projects.

In recent days we received more accessions to the campaign from Asia. The organizations that have joined are CamboDHRRA, Cambodia; ThaiDHRRA Thailand and DHRRA Malaysia, all development NGOs. Also from Indonesia has joined WAMTI, organization of farmers and fishermen.

AFDI's electronic newsletter provides us with a new chronicle from Geneva, where is celebrating the WTO summit.

CIFA's article published in the Indian newspaper Business Standard.

AFDI's electronic newsletter provides us with a new chronicle from Geneva, where is celebrating the WTO summit.

The inter-ministerial conference of WTO, held these days in Geneva with the participation of 2700 members of the 153 national delegations, aims to advance the technical aspects of the Doha Round to make possible a political agreement at the highest level in the regulation of international trade in 2010 as the culmination of that Round. U.S. is the key country, and perhaps less willing to reach agreement.

More information

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The Research Group on Tourism and Sustainable Development Planning-GIPTDS of the National University of Colombia, with headquarters in Palmira, issued a press release in which it endorsed the International Year of the Family Farming.

The municipalities of Los Corrales de Buelna, Ramales de la Victoria, Soba y Santoña have joined the campaign for the International Year of the Family Farming.

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ILEIA network, attached to the campaign, has posted on his blog a chronicle of the Asian Continental Meeting held between 23 and 25 of March in New Delhi. A representative of this association was present at the meeting.

Authors: Dr. Wen-Chi Huang and Mr Jeun-Sheng Lin
Organization: TaiwanDHRRA

Author : Ms Dwi Astuti
Organization: Bina Desa

Author: CIFA
Organization: CIFA

Organization: KAFF-Korean Advanced Farmers Federation

Author: S.M. ASIM*. Director General in RDF
Organization: Rural Development Foundation

Author: Pote Chumsri, Ph.D- Secretary General
Organization: Farmer Federations Association for Development Thailand (SorKorPor)

Author: Lani Eugenia, executive secretary
Organization: Indonesia Farmers Society (WAMTI)

Author: Dr. Wen-Chi Huang
Associate Professor, Dept. of Agribusiness Management,
Joint Appointment with Dept. of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation
National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST), Taiwan

The Asian meeting of the Campaign for the International Year of the Family Farming has ended and has been a great success. For two days, representatives from various organizations what supports the campaign, have met in Delhi to discuss the initiatives will be launched in Asia. The participants have decided that Marlene Ramirez of AsiaDHRRA and Mr. Chengal Reddy of CIFA are going to be the representatives of the continent in the World Consultative Committee to support the Campaign.

Summary report of Lawrence I. Hewes Jr.

Documents collected by the association Accompaniment Methodological Development Initiatives-ATOL.

Paper conducted by the National Commission for the Rural Development-CNFR from Uruguay.

We continue receiving documents for the Rural Women's Internatinal Day.

Paper about Family Farming in Brazil, written by the American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture.

The Agriculture and Food Commission of Coordination SUD undertook this study in an attempt to put family farming back into it rightful place as the core business of development in the South. It underlines the benefits of small farms for employment, poverty reduction, cost effectiveness, reducing hunger, respecting the environment and restoring life to rural areas.
The study is based on bibliographies and case studies drawn up by partners of Commission members. This document is an overview of this study1 and sets out the main results of the process. The first and second parts address the vital importance of small farms, and paradoxically, the lack of interest shown in them until recently by international development policies.
In the third part, we set out what we believe to be the cogent arguments for defending family farming as an essential part of development in the Global South.

All countries present at the final intergovernmental plenary session held in Johannesburg, South Africa in April 2008 welcome the work of the IAASTD and the uniqueness of this independent multistakeholder and multidisciplinary process, and the scale of the challenge of covering a broad range of complex issues. The Governments present recognize that the Global and sub-Global Reports are the conclusions of studies by a wide range of scientific authors, experts and development specialists and while presenting an overall consensus on the importance of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development they also provide a diversity of views on some issues.

IAASD document

From Asia we receive the experience of Huang Yan-Liang, member of the Executive Board of the Taiwan Dairy Farmers Association (TDFA) who also has his own farm "Yiu-Shen".

Agricultural Situation in Taiwan.

In Taiwan a process of Agricultural Reform is underway which Huang rates as a success, via which the sale and purchase of land is free via contract. The Taiwanese farmers have social security cover and private insurance.

Dairy Production
The Dairy Market is monopolised and individualised sale does not exist. The price of milk in Taiwan is the highest in the world (0.68$), a price which the farmers and the Government reach via an advance agreement.

The model of production is very intensive; the cows' lives are shortened, particularly because the greatest demand for milk is in the hot season, when production per cow is actually lower. This higher demand in summer is due to the fact that in Taiwan milk is consumed as an ice-cold drink.

As regards foreign dependence, Taiwanese farmers import almost all the feed they need and they have an import control - SOP- small outline packages.

Huang recognises that although the present and future are marked by the progressive increase in the size of farms, their ownership continues to lie in the hands of families, in which case we can continue to refer to family farming.
We encourage you to download Huang's full presentation here:

In 2008, the intensity of the food crisis shed light on the world's hunger problem.
Indeed, with 963 million people affected, almost 1 out of 6 people currently suffers from hunger. The fight against this scourge requires, beyond the well intentioned declarations, a stronger, better organised and more coherent mobilisation of the international community.

At present, such a policy framework, that reunites all actors, does not exist. The framework for global action set out by the United Nations special team, created in April 2008, puts an emphasis on working to coordinate actors in the field on a national level.
However, there is no political area on the international level enabling more mutually coherent commercial, agricultural, energetic, financial and environmental policies which would all influence world food security.

On behalf of the Unió de Pagesos, the encounter was attended by Salomó Torres member of the Comissió Permanent Nacional, as well as an organic wine grower and farmer.

The Unió represents 37,000 farms which cover practically all agricultural sectors (rice, citrus fruits, horses, etc.), homemade food products, etc. They also pay special attention to the incorporation of young people, women "dones", an example of which is that they are members of the Rural Women's Network, and the "elderly". They are setting up an organisation that will offer the support required by the retired farmers, a group which is growing in size and has little protection. They are also pioneers in Co-development, they recognised the need to incorporate foreign labour and decided to repay them by training the workers so that once they returned to their places of origin they could in turn train others. They also have a service to hire temporary workers and other support services.

In his speech, he wished to highlight the constant uncertainty in farmers' lives. "A farm that is profitable one year may not be so the following year". They suffer very sharp price variations which do not help in making it a more attractive sector for young people.

He also pointed out the need to redefine and reinvent agricultural cooperativism, which is based on a model created 120 years ago in a context that is very far from the situation we are in now. The redefinition is essentially required from the need to facilitate the marketing of the products in the best conditions for the farmers.
The cooperative is in charge of the transformation and marketing whilst the Unió de Pagesos brings together farmers who are offered different services. La Unió also acts as a pressure group before the Authorities, Agro-industries and the Distribution Chains. On the subject of distribution they have set up a campaign called Km 0 which refers to the reduction of middlemen in order to improve the farmers' margins.

You can access the paper via the following links:

From Africa we have the participation of Kunda Mwila, Head of Communication of the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU).

Agricultural Situation in Zambia.

Zambia is an inland country with no sea access, which has approximately 1.2 million small farmers.

The corn that is mainly produced during the rainy season is considered a "political crop" as corn flour is the basic food of the population. Other important productions in Zambia for export are soya, tobacco and cotton.

In Zambia the practice of Conservation Farming is becoming more and more common. The Zambian farmers who practice this type of farming are obtaining very good results, as the average yield they obtain with this productive model is 5 ton/ha as opposed to 1.2 ton on average obtained from traditional production.

Market Access
Kunda wanted to emphasise one of the recurring problems among small farmers, access to the market.

For this reason, he emphasise the importance of working with short marketing circuits, thus reducing to a minimum the long chain of middlemen that is normally created from the farmer to the consumer.

In particular, he shared with those present a successful practice that this organisation set up in 2006 to enable farmers to find out the market prices of the goods they produce. This idea materialised by sending text messages to mobile phones. They are also working on other possibilities to improve access to the market via the Internet.

He ended his speech by advocating the need to organise the farmers, and highlighted that it is essential to the extent that gaining more dimension enables better attention to the purchasers' demands and improves their capacity for negotiation.

Here is a link from which you can access the presentation developed by the Zambia National Farmers Union.

From Peru, we have the participation of Luis Zúñiga, current Head of International Relations of the National Convention of Peruvian Agriculture - CONVEAGRO (Institutional Partner of the WRF). CONVEAGRO, institutional partner and member of the WRF's Executive Board, was created in 2000 and includes all of the agricultural trades in Peru, including rural development organisations and professional associations.

Agricultural Situation in Peru.

75% of poor people in Peru live in the countryside and the farmers are clearly invisible in the eyes of the government.
In 1969, a process of Agricultural Reform was carried out. The average size of 98% of the Peruvian farms is less than 20 ha, what's more, 83% of the farms have less than 5 ha of useful farming land, which means that smallholdings predominate in Peru.

As regards the associative movement of Peruvian agriculture, he wanted to highlight that during Fujimori's government, practically all agricultural associationism disappeared, and the current government led by Alan García appears to want to eliminate smallholding.

Strong Foreign Dependence
Approximately 100% of the wheat consumed, 65% of the corn and 100% of the barley used for the Food Industry, is imported from other countries. Even cotton, a product of which not long ago Peru was an important exporter is now also imported.

Control of the Price of Agricultural Inputs
The government needs to exercise certain control over the price of inputs. He also gave us the example of urea, CONVEAGRO, more specifically the rice farmers, agreed to purchase urea directly from Ukraine which caused its price to drop to half the price of that offered by 4 suppliers in Peru.

Lobby Actions
CONVEAGRO works actively on lobby actions and makes proposals and amendments to the Peruvian government. In his speech he also regretted the approval of the Free Trade Agreement with the US, and the fact that as a result of its ratification they are looking for new markets, as the majority "are sold".

In Peru, the phenomenon of invisible farmers is apparent; it seems that they are of no interest to the government as they make little contribution to the coffers. This proposal for organisation would also be positive for the government for the purposes of tax collection. This has led CONVEAGRO to launch a business organisation project for the farmers, in order to increase their capacity for negotiation, profit, etc.
Among other measures that CONVEAGRO proposes to the Government is for it to exonerate family farmers from paying taxes like the IGB which collects 19% of sales and an income tax as an incentive to maintaining and improving their production.