Guyanese farmers attend UN family farming event in Chile

Two Guyanese farmers have attended the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (UNDFF) meetings, which was held at the FAO Office for Latin America and the Caribbean headquarters in Santiago, Chile.
The Guyanese farmers’ – Javed Ishmael of the West Berbice Sheep and Goat Association and Cindy Halley of the Central Mahaicony/Perth Village Farmers Association – experience will serve as inputs for national policy dialogues on the importance of family farmers and positioning small-scale producers at the centre of the agri-food systems transformation agenda.
Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), is aiming to strengthen family farming by implementing closer integration of countries within Latin America and the Caribbean.
Participants at the event highlighted the need to strengthen family farming by increasing investment and budgets to build new rural development governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. They also placed emphasis on the simple fact that it is essential to direct more investments to family farming in order to combat inequality in the territories and provide society with healthy and nutritious food produced more sustainably.
The event saw a major turn out of representatives of over twenty countries, ten Ministers and Deputy Ministers and also two hundred delegates who gathered to discuss the progress and policies of the UNDFF.
The FAO has been supporting the work of smallholders in Guyana through a portfolio of projects to improve the livelihoods of family farmers, and the food and nutrition security of their communities.
The farmers were supported by the FO4ACP programme, which is being implemented by FAO with funding from the European Union, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).
FO4CP aims to improve access to services to empower women, rural youth and vulnerable communities by strengthening the organisational capacity of farmers’ groups in areas of entrepreneurship, business and operational development.
Representatives of governments, multilateral bodies, and regional rural organisations also committed themselves to developing and implementing public policy agendas aimed at empowering family farmers. This is because of their key role in eradicating hunger and poverty and mitigating the effects of climate change.
FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mario Lubetkin in his speech, “Between 2019 and 2021 alone, hunger figures increased to more than 13 million, people and poverty is projected to reach 201 million people and extreme poverty to reach 82 million people by 2022.”
He also stressed that, “collaborative work is required to change this situation, and this must be led by the countries, through their institutions, to advance their priorities.”
Lubetkin reaffirmed the willingness to “continue working with governments and all actors in the Region, civil society, and academia, with our technical capabilities to facilitate initiatives that strengthen the bonds of integration and solidarity. I reiterate: This is your home”.
“We must recognise this meeting as an exceptional opportunity to generate agreements that facilitate dialogue and the design of differentiated policies for family farming and highlight its role in the transformation of agrifood systems,” Lubetkin added.