World Citizens to stress world food
policy during 2014: The International Year of Family
Farming
The United Nations General Assembly has designated 2014 as the
International Year of Family Farming to highlight the double need of feeding the
world and caring for the Earth.
The Year will highlight the important role of women and men as family
farmers with the aim of stimulating policies for the ecologically-sound
development of farmer families, fishing families, indigenous groups and
cooperatives.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the lead UN Agency for the
Year of Family Farming. It is
estimated that there are some 500 million farm families, defined as farms which
rely primarily on family for labour and management.
A goal of the Year is to build awareness that family farming is at the
center of sound agricultural, environmental, and social policies. During the Year, research and studies
should indicate gaps and opportunities in efforts to reach a more equal and
balanced development for smallholders.
The Association of World Citizens is building on early world citizen
efforts, such as those of Lord Boyd-Orr, an active world citizen and first
Director-General of FAO. The
Association of World Citizens has been urging a comprehensive world food policy
based on ecologically-sound development. 2014 presents a real opportunity for
looking at food-related issues including land tenure, landless farmers,
malnutrition, and child labour on farms.
A central theme which citizens of the world have stressed is that there
needs to be a true world food policy and that a world food policy is more than
the sum of national food security programs. The focus on the formulation of only
national plans is clearly inadequate.
There is a need for a world plan of action with strong attention to the
role that the United Nations and regional institutions must play if hunger is to
be sharply reduced.
For the formulation of a dynamic world food policy, world economic trends
and structures need to be analysed including climate change, energy costs,
export policies of major agricultural production States, and the role of
speculation in commodities. A world
food policy for the welfare of all requires a close look at world institutions
and patterns of production and trade. The Year of Family Farming offers an
important opportunity to analyse the many elements necessary for a sound world
food policy.
My emphasis here is on the policy and efforts of the Association of World
Citizens, but obviously, the structure of agricultural production and trade is
of concern to many organizations and research centers. The value of
UN-designated Years is to build awareness so that creative action may be taken.
There is a three-step process in
awareness-building:
1)
Factually-correct
information needs to be gathered and analysed so that trends can be
determined.
2)
There needs to be a
wave of energy created both by emotion and reflection that builds a demand for
change.
3)
There needs to be a
plan of action which outlines paths and steps to be
taken.
In practice, the emotional energy wave may come first as people react to
highly publicised events and only afterwards is data collected and
analysed. However, data, energy,
plan would be the ideal pattern.
Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens
