Farmers speech at the Inter Governmental Session
on the SDGs – New York, 20 January 2015 delivered by Mr Dyborn Chibonga, World Farmers
Organisation, WFO
Co-Facilitators, Excellencies, esteemed major group colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the World Farmers' Organisation, within the Farmers' Major Group, I would like to congratulate the Inter Governmental session for the big achievement reached so far with the establishment of this complex and very important process leading to the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation in the Post-2015.
We welcome very much the mentioning of food security and sustainable agriculture in the goal title 2, which reflects the close linkages between sustainable development and agriculture. However, we feel that the document can still be improved to include a wider reference to the agricultural sector.
Let me take this opportunity to share a few words about the farmers.
In all countries, Farmers are a responsible community of agropreneurs who work with other stakeholders from around the globe in order to foster food system stability; respect the environment; acknowledge the rights of all farmers to be entrepreneurs and gain appropriate incomes
and; respect the farming community’s diversity.
The United Nations have declared the year 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming since Family Farming is exactly the link between the
social, economical and environmental dimensions of food security. More than half of the food needed to ensure future global food security is produced
by family farmers. As of today, 90% of the world’s food supply is provided by family farmers.
As the world population continues to grow, and the projections are daunting: 9.2 billion in 2050, we realize the importance of increasing food
production to sustainable way.
feed all these people in a
Moreover, farmers are contributors to the fight against other global challenges like climate change, the water management, the land erosion and the rural employment. Engaging into these processes requires better education, investment and entrepreneurial skills that farmers need, in order to enhance their role as food producers.
With the right knowledge, capacity building and technical assistance, farmers can not only adapt to environmental challenges and especially the climate change, but also contribute to its long- term mitigation, simultaneously ensuring global food security.
Farmers, because of their close relationship with the land, have an inner knowledge of agricultural products, their characteristics and their nutrition factors. Farmers, better than everybody else, are capable of selecting and producing the highest quality food possible. Therefore, if we want to achieve better global health conditions we need to rely on farmers, their expertise and knowledge.
In light of the above, we would really count on you, excellencies, to ensure that farmers will be
given the right space in this unique process, as well as the right opportunity to contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, as agents of solutions in all areas.
Thank you.
