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Advances in the process of developing guidelines for family farming

28/03/2017

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Developing guidelines will help support the establishment of laws to protect and promote Family Farming.

Several advocacy forums are making progress in their processes to develop guidelines to support Family Farming. In some cases these guidelines have led to draft legislation for Family Farming being developed. Drawing up guidelines which promote Family Farming is one of the actions arising from the IYFF+10 Initiative. This global initiative aims to keep the momentum of IYFF 2014 to secure better public policies which promote Family Farming.

It is noteworthy that Costa Rica has drawn up a bill, [document in Spanish], with a specific section on Family Farming. This section has been written based on the proposed guidelines developed by the National Committee on Family Farming (known as the Costa Rican Family Farming Network). Hence the development of these guidelines allowed for the establishment of a requirement and a conceptualisation of Family Farming, which had been excluded from previous legislation.

In Indonesia, the NCFF (national committee on family farming) carried out a consultation process with all of its member and associated organisations and with research centres (Bogor, 10-11 January 2017) in which the basis for the national guidelines was agreed. These were written by a team consisting of representatives from the farmers’ organisations of the NCFF, research staff from the headquarters of the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), representatives from the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice and the Indonesian Centre for Agricultural Socio Economic and Policy Studies.

It is also worth highlighting that the NCFFs in Senegal, Kenya and Uganda are also in the process of developing their own guidelines for Family Farming.

At regional level, the REAF (Specialised Meeting on Family Farming in Mercosur, consisting of 8 countries) has made a commitment to develop specific public policy guidelines for Family Farming in the Mercosur countries.

We had already mentioned the process of setting up regional guidelines to support Family Farming which was being worked on by the CPLP (Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries). Following public consultations, this is now in the final phase. It is hoped that this process will have a significant positive impact on Family Farming public policies in the 9 member countries of the CPLP.

It is worth mentioning that other regional forums for rural dialogue have also shown interest in developing their own Guidelines. These include the PDRR (Regional Rural Dialogue Programme for Central America and the Dominican Republic) and PIFON (Pacific Island Farmers Organisation Network) who see this process as a way of enhancing their own advocacy strategies.

OTHER ADVANCES

We want to highlight the approval of the Family Farming Framework Law [in Spanish] by members of the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (Parlatino), which includes recommendations and guidelines to strengthen the sector in those countries. This document will be sent by Parlatino to the assemblies and congresses of the 23 member countries of this regional body for ratification. Although this is not a binding text, this new law represents a step in the right direction by encouraging governments to ensure and prioritise the ongoing protection and promotion of Family Farming, not simply as an economic activity but as a way of life.

In September 2016, the G20 received a document on “Good practices in Family Farming”, proposed by Brazil, which recognises the importance of sustainable agricultural development and identifies a series of policies, programmes and effective and efficient tools as reference sources for members of the G20. This document will help men and women family farmers to benefit greatly from specific public policies.

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