Unleashing potential of family farming in Near East and North Africa

By Serge Nakouzi and Dina Saleh

Family farmers are leaders in responding to the double urgency facing the Near East and north Africa region today: improving food and nutrition security, and ensuring inclusive agricultural development while preserving natural resources.

In recent years, the region has been grappling with many challenges that could lead to a serious setback in progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These include the increasingly unsustainable use of already scarce or dwindling natural resources, especially water; rising hunger and malnutrition; protracted socio-political crises in several countries; the impacts of climate change; and economic slowdown, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These alarming challenges call for a new paradigm for transforming food systems and rural development, one that puts environmental, social and economic sustainability at its centre, to ensure food and nutrition security for all.

Family farmers should be at the heart of this radical transformation.

Family farmers, including small-scale farmers, fisher folk, pastoralists, mountain farmers and rural women and youth, hold unique potential to become key agents of rural transformation and sustainable development. They play a significant role in agricultural production, food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources and protecting the environment.

Family farming is the predominant form of food and agricultural production in the region. These farms are responsible for more than 80 per cent of agricultural production.

Although family farmers are the backbone of our food system, they also face myriad socioeconomic and other challenges. Many family farmers in the region live in poverty and, paradoxically, many go hungry themselves.

COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the situation, especially for those operating at a small scale. Temporary movement restrictions hinder their access to markets, and the perishable goods they mostly produce are the most affected.

This is unacceptable, for them and for our collective future.

Family farmers create jobs both on and off farms and so contribute significantly to the growth of rural economies. They preserve and restore biodiversity and ecosystems, and use production methods that can help reduce the risks of climate change and enable them to adapt. They pass on vital knowledge and tradition from generation to generation. But to continue these roles amid rapid change and numerous challenges, they need our support.

This is why FAO and IFAD are co-organised a virtual event this week to spotlight the role of family farming in the Near East and North Africa region. Participants included farmers and farmers’ organisations from all countries of the region.

Family farmers in the region have enormous potential, but they lack access to resources and services to support their food production and marketing. Infrastructure in rural areas is poor, and the environmental and climatic conditions on which they rely are under threat.

Supporting family farming offers a unique opportunity to address the needs of future generations, for building resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems. Family farming should be at the centre of national and regional development programmes. This means offering technical assistance and policies that help increase productivity, place appropriate technologies within their reach, improve their access to land and water, credit and markets, and create an enabling environment for further investments and innovation.

We all have a role to play in fulfilling the potential of family farming,--governments, family farmers associations and networks, international and regional agencies, the private sector, civil society and academia.

FAO’s Regional Initiative on Small-scale Family Farming is implementing projects that directly contribute to increasing agricultural productivity and incomes of family farmers, reducing rural poverty through small-scale agricultural development across the region, with a focus on Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

IFAD has always recognized the potential benefits of investing in smallholder family farmers. It is the only United Nations specialised agency and international financial institution focusing exclusively on agricultural and rural development and empowering the most vulnerable. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$22.4 billion in grants and low-interest loans through projects empowering more than 512 million rural people to support food security and reduce rural poverty to create vibrant rural communities. In this region, IFAD has focused its operations on family farmers, who are often located in remote and under resourced areas but can be substantial players in achieving sustainable development.

The United Nation Decade of Family Farming (UNDFF) and its Global Action Plan provides an extraordinary opportunity. FAO, IFAD and key partners are introducing a new generation of projects, enabling the policy environment and providing technical interventions tailored to the region. These efforts aims to promote sustainable agriculture and food systems transformation, with family farming at its core.

The Decade will make family farming and all family-based production models the focus of interventions, which will contribute to the goals we all share: a world free of hunger and poverty, where natural resources are managed sustainably, and where no one is left behind.

Serge Nakouzi is FAO deputy regional representative for the Near East and North Africa. Dina Saleh is IFAD regional director for the Near East, North Africa, Central Asia and Europe. They contributed this article to The Jordan Times