WFO positions are the result of a truly bottom-up approach led by its members that are at the basis of each strategic and political document. WFO members propose the key areas, work on the position papers and approve them during the General Assembly, ensuring that WFO can advocate for the needs and expectations of the farming community.
WFO Policy Paper on Sustainable Food Systems
WFO is committed to achieving Sustainable Food Systems contributing to the process design, preparation and implementation, and to secure an opportunity for the voice of family farmers to be heard and for the world farmers to be kept at the heart of any sustainable food systems fair transformation.
Farmers are the key to achieving Sustainable Global Food and Nutrition Security. What farmers produce is the precondition to attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2.
Building upon the outcomes of the United Nations Food Systems Summit and findings from the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report 2023, it is evident there is a necessity to consider the detrimental effects on food security caused by various conflicts and crises that were not present during the first policy revision as well as the widespread, rapid and intensifying impact of climate change. In response, the General Assembly of WFO adopted an updated version of its institutional policy on Food Security and Nutrition.
WFO Recommendations for Eliminating Rural Poverty and Achieving Food Security
More than 1 billion people in the world live in absolute poverty. 925 million people do not have enough food in order to sustain life and work. The great majority of these people live in the rural areas, and most of them are farmers. Farmers constitute about one third of the world´s population,
but half of the world´s hungry.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Farmers and foresters are on the frontline of this change as the lives and livelihoods of those who feed, clothe and fuel the world are directly affected by a changing climate and weather extremes. At the same time, agriculture is expected to meet the future needs of a more urban and affluent population of 9 billion by 2050. Consequently, agricultural production will need to increase significantly. Along with food, global demand for water, energy and land will also increase, putting additional pressure on the world’s natural resources and threatening the very ecosystems we rely upon.
WFO Position on Carbon Markets
The introduction of voluntary carbon offsetting schemes was seen as an opportunity to reward farmers for implementing practices that foster the storage of carbon in soil. The design of carbon markets should be consistent with the Paris Agreement which recognized “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and aims to strengthen the global response to climate change “in a manner that does not threaten food production”. This is critical in ensuring that humanity achieves all Sustainable Development Goals. To ensure that opportunities are maximized, and risks minimized, it is critical that carbon markets put the needs of farmers, the agriculture sector, and rural communities at the heart of policy design.
Declining biodiversity, soil health, and water quality and availability are not only a crisis in and of themselves; they exacerbate the effects of climate change and directly impact food, fibre, and fuel production and, therefore, on farmers’ income and livelihoods. A sound environmental policy that halts and then reverses the decline is simply in the interest of the world’s farmers who depend on biodiversity and natural resources like soil and water for essential services such as pollination, natural pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility and water regulation. Just as farmers depend on the environment, often the environment depends on farmers, who actively and in cooperation with nature, manage over 1/3 of the world’s land. Too often, government decisions and policy settings have little consideration for the services that our agroecosystems provide to society, whereas distorted market incentives and inappropriate top-down regulations are driving down the ability of farmers to increase the efficiency of on-farm production without impacting environmental outcomes worldwide. There is an urgent need to recognise the role of farmers as not only food producers but also stewards of the environment and develop adequate incentive structures to help them sustainably manage biodiversity and natural resources as an integral part of their farming operations.
Farmers and farmers’ cooperative organisations can play many roles and perform different functions, from facilitating services delivery, mobilisation of local resources, and collective marketing, to members’ empowerment at local level and engagement with policy and service providers by creating an enabling environment to build farmers’ capabilities. We call on policy makers to create an enabling environment for this boost to structured organization for farmers by legal systems, political support and inclusion within relevant fora of discussion. Promoting fair trading practices and stronger relationships between food production and consumption, and among value chain actors, developing different networks of distribution and exchange could bring concrete solutions to global challenges contributing to the sustainability of food systems and security of food supply.
Giving more freedom of choice to farmers together with more value added can contribute to global food security ensuring sustainable food systems that respect producers’ work, consumers and environment.
WFO Position on Real Agriculture
A stronger connection between consumers, policymakers, and the agricultural and rural world is essential to move towards greater economic, social and environmental sustainability. Increasing productivity and its stability by enhancing the resilience and adaptability of farming systems, sustainably utilising resources in agriculture and increasing soil fertility are the critical issues for an ever-growing population to nourish itself adequately, successfully and sufficiently. But to achieve these goals, it is imperative to continue investing in agriculture focusing on those who have always defended and protected land, soil, biodiversity, and nature: farmers. It is on these assumptions that the WFO is embracing an approach to innovation that is bottom-up, science-based and results-oriented, but rejects any attempt to replace the food resulting from the work of farmers with lab-grown food and to further concentrate power in the value chains, dismissing the work of farmers and pushing consumers towards a single and homogenous dietary model, which does not value the tradition, diversity, richness, quality, and peculiarities of each region of our planet.
Trade, alongside domestic agriculture, supported by effective domestic policies, delivers an opportunity to increase local, national and global food security and sovereignty worldwide in a fair and sustainable manner while contributing to economic prosperity and sustainable development. Improving the global trading system to make it more inclusive and fairer for all farmers is a big challenge but it has the potential to increase productivity and diversification of production, promote inclusiveness, and aid in achieving many SDGs. WFO is committed to the pursuit of ambitious trade policy objectives and the reinforcement of the rule-based global agricultural trading system. This allows farmers to operate in a fair, transparent, and predictable trading environment fulfilling their wider economic, social and environmental role.
WFO Policy on Livestock Production
Livestock production currently faces a number of global challenges in terms of global food security, food safety, animal diseases and welfare, antimicrobial resistance, economic viability, and expectations related to landscape and environment. On the other hand, the global community acknowledges that livestock farming has an essential role for poverty reduction and the achievement of food security and nutrition. It is highly relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as to the implementation of the 2014 Rome Declaration on Nutrition and to the fulfilment of the universal Human Right to Food.
WFO Policy on Antimicrobial Use and Resistance in Livestock
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective prevention and treatment of infections in humans and animals. Resistant bacteria and infectious diseases do not respect borders and are present in all parts of the world. Global action is needed to preserve the long-term availability of effective treatment of infections for future generations. AMR is of great importance to human and animal health and a One Health approach at global, regional and national level is crucial for tackling AMR. Close cooperation between stakeholders in human and veterinary medicine is needed and everyone must take part in the fight against AMR. WFO will support and encourage farmers, veterinarians, specialists in livestock production, and food specialists to join forces and combat AMR together to minimize the risk of it spreading, while taking into consideration the human, animal and environmental dimensions.
Cooperatives can be considered as an innovative business model and play a key role in boosting the potential of the farming sector. Indeed, agricultural cooperatives foster farmers’ economic, social and political inclusion as their members can get access to markets, value chains, opportunities that would otherwise be beyond their reach. Strengthening cooperatives is key to facilitate farmers’ access to resources, including land, technology, information education, funds, insurances, social services, that individual farmers may otherwise not be able to access alone, thus fostering development of rural communities.
Innovation is much more than the mere adoption of new technologies and should be adopted from different points of view: it should be technological, social, organisational. Indeed, it is considered as a key driver to improve the quality of production, as well as to boost the sustainability and resilience of food systems. Farmers are innovators by nature and innovation in agriculture has to be farmers driven, based on farmers’ needs, expertise and knowledge. Also, it has to be affordable for all farmers so to be an instrument for them to be game changers for achieving more resilient, inclusive and sustainable food systems.
Women play a key role in achieving global food security and making food systems more sustainable. However, their crucial role in taking care of families and communities, preserving local traditions and ecosystems, and their active contribution to the farming sector, remains often hidden and unpaid. Empowering women, providing them with the adequate skills and capacity-building opportunities to increase their self-leadership, as well as reducing inequalities in their access to resources, is a crucial precondition for the sustainable development of rural communities.
Despite facing many challenges, including unemployment, lack of access to land, credit, resources, education, young farmers are a huge goldmine for the future of our food systems. Facilitating their access to education and training, financial and non-financial resources, as well as engaging them in the policy making processes, is key to unlock their potential to provide solutions toward a more sustainable farming sector.
Young Farmers’ Manifesto
Young farmers present a huge goldmine that can provide the solution to the main challenges of the 21st century as well as a strong potential to modernize an ageing agricultural sector that needs to be rejuvenated if a sustainable future and social stability for the Planet are to be achieved.
WFO Declaration Against Violence to Farmers
WFO strongly condemns all forms of violence against farmers and rural communities worldwide, including physical, moral, gender, racial, religious, social and economic violence.
WFO calls on governments to provide appropriate protection and security to farming communities.