The
UN General Assembly has declared 2014 to be the International Year of Family
Farming and has invited FAO to facilitate implementation of the International
Year, in collaboration with its partners. Among its initiatives for the
International Year, FAO is planning to publish a major study on family farming
and Agricultural innovation systems (AIS) in 2014 in the State of Food and
Agriculture series, which is FAO’s major annual flagship publication.
Agricultural
innovation systems are systems of individuals, organizations and enterprises
that bring new products, processes and forms of organization into social and
economic use to achieve food security, economic development and sustainable
natural resource management. AIS include a multitude of potential actors, such
as producer organizations, research organizations, extension and advisory
services, universities and educational bodies, governments and civil society
organizations, co-coordinating bodies, individual farmers and farm laborers,
and the private sector (including traders, processors, supermarkets etc.).
The
e-mail conference is open to everyone, is free and will be moderated.
The Background
Document to this FAO e-mail conference is available here.
Meeting
the needs of smallholder farming families also provides the central theme of
the GCARD RoadMap, which sets out the systematic changes
required to transform and strengthen innovation systems to better meet the needs
of resource-poor smallholders around the world. Results from the FAO
e-mail consultation will help inform discussion in The Second Global Conference on
Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD 2): “Foresight and
partnership for innovation and impact on small-holder livelihoods” on
practical actions underway and that are required to implement these systematic
changes. The GCARD 2 will be organized in Punta del Este,
Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012, more information is available on the GFAR website.
The Pre-Registration
for the GCARD 2012 Conference is now open.
Outcomes
from the email consultation and the GCARD Conference will inform preparation of
the major FAO study in 2014, as well as help to build cooperation around key
forward-looking agendas and facilitate planning of joint actions among all AIS
stakeholders to deliver large scale development outcomes.
