The governing council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) ended on Thursday in Rome, Italy, with promises of more assistance to smallholder farmers across the world, as well as ensuring that small farmers were involved in decision-making about their trade.
Leaders of the world’s farming organisations praised Ifad for the assistance it’s been providing to rural farmers. The farmers’ forum, which held its third global meeting on the sidelines of an Ifad governing council, told the media on Thursday that more needed to be done to make small farmers part of decision-making bodies in their countries and on the international stage.
The forum also reiterated the fact that since the last farmers’ forum meeting, the world has experienced multiple crises, exacerbated by the global recession and climate change and as a result more people are poor and hungry.
Vice-president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (Ifap), Raul Montemayor, thanked Ifad for its intervention in countries that it works with, saying the interventions brought about some changes.
“Ifad was only talking to governments, but the governments were not talking to us. Now Ifad committed to encouraging governments to talk to us,” said Montemayor. “That is a huge undertaking that Ifad has committed itself to.”
Estrella Penunia Banzuela, general secretary of the Asian Farmers’ Association, said the space for dialogue was however still “narrow”, but that through Ifad, farmers from different countries were able to share information that helped develop them.
‘We need to work harder’
“We are still doing a lot of organising work and capacity building at national, regional and international level. It is not working 100% yet, we need to work harder.”
President of Réseau des Organisations des Paysannes et des Producteurs Agricoles (Roppa), Ndiogou Fall, said some governments still had an attitude of “closing doors” to small farmers. Roppa is a network of farmers’ organisations representing 10 countries in West Africa. Fall urged Ifad to increase efforts of talking directly to farmers, as that would help provide some bargaining power when farmers engage with their governments.
“Ifad having direct contact with us will improve things and get our governments to communicate with us more.”
The 2009 survey of all Ifad country programme managers, directors of Ifad funded projects and leaders of 24 farmers’ organisations, showed that the agency’s commitment to involve farmers’ organisations in the formulation of country strategic opportunities programmes (COSOPs) and in project design and implementation improved in terms of quality and intensity of collaboration.
Farmers’ organisations were involved in 86% of new COSOP formulations in 2008/9, and in the majority of cases (61%) the involvement went beyond consultation. Farmers’ organisations were full members of country programme management teams and special workshops were organised to equip them with the necessary information.
The farmers’ forum also spoke about the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies and how they are a disadvantage to farmers from developing countries who were not receiving any subsidies. Said Montemayor: “We are not questioning the support of European farmers through subsidies, but the consequences are harming [the farmers]. We [small farmers] are suffering for the benefit of your farmers.”
Montemayor added that it was not helpful for rich countries to give their farmers subsidies and then give aid to farmers from poor countries.
“Subsidies harm small farmers and at the same time you [rich countries] are giving aid to those farmers that you are hurting. You are giving with one hand and you take with another hand.”