World Food Day Spotlights Family Farmers

On October 16, 2014, nations celebrated the World Food Day focusing on the theme Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring the Earth. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report State of Food and Agriculture 2014 released on the same date, 9 out of 10 of the world's 570 million farms are operated by families. Family farms produce about 80 percent of the world's food. Thus, the family farm is the predominant form of agriculture and at the same time vital agent of change in attaining food security in alleviating hunger in the future.

At present, family farming faces three major challenges: need for more yield to meet the world's demand for food and better nutrition, environmental sustainability to protect the planet; and productivity growth and livelihood diversification to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. According to FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva, all the challenges mean that family farmers must be protagonists of innovation. Thus, the report calls for the public sector, civil society groups, and the private sector to enhance innovation systems for agriculture. Agricultural innovation systems include all the institutions and actors that support farmers in developing and adopting better ways of working in today's increasingly complex world. Innovation capacity must be promoted at various levels, with incentives for farmers, researchers, advisory service providers and integrated value chains to interact and create networks and partnerships to share information.

Read the report at http://www.fao.org/publications/sofa/en/.