Deep Roots

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Strengthening family farming through

support for gender justice, food sovereignty

and biodiversity-based ecological agriculture

Sarojeni V. Rengam, Executive Director, Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific

he Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of

the United Nations has dedicated 2014 as the

International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to high-

light the vital contribution of family farming and smallholder

farming in “eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food

security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing

natural resources, protecting the environment, and achiev-

ing sustainable development, in particular in rural areas”.

This is a timely policy declaration from the world’s leading

food and agriculture agency. Family farming remains the

predominant form of agriculture in the world today and

family farmers are the main producers of food which we

consume on a daily basis.

Alarmingly high levels of global poverty and hunger high-

light the timeliness of the declaration. Given the non-stop

expansion of corporate farming and technology globally, spot-

lighting the significance of people involved in farming – that

is, smallholder farmers – is a welcome move for advocates of

pro-people agricultural policies and programmes.

IYFF brings to the forefront the fact that family farms and

rural communities are being displaced worldwide, as more

agricultural land is used for urban expansion and develop-

ment and/or for the large-scale expansion of corporate farms.

This expansion of corporate farms and of the use of corporate

technology is environmentally and economically unsustain-

able in the long term. For example, the use of pesticides in

food production impacts the health of people and the envi-

ronment, compromising people’s ability to work, earn a living

and conduct community and livelihood functions.

To ensure that the IYFF goal “to reposition family farming

at the centre of agricultural, environmental and social policies

After winning their battle for land rights, a group of Dalit women decided to

undertake collective farming with the help of TNWF and SRED

PAN-AP has provided leadership training for rural women

for the past seven years

Image: PAN AP

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