Towards the G8 Agriculture: African Farmers take the floor
Wednesday 15 April 2009, 15.00 to 19.00, Sala delle Statue, Coldiretti, Via XXIV Maggio, 43 - Rome.
On 15 April 2009, in Rome, five African regional networks of farmers’ organizations* will adopt a common Declaration addressed to the G8 Agriculture scheduled to take place in the province of Treviso from 18 to 20 April and to the G8 Development which will be held in Pescara from 21 to 23 May.
For the first time in the history of the G8 a specific meeting is being dedicated to agriculture. The principal theme of the encounter is world food security. The objective is to develop a common strategy to put agricultural production back in the centre of political economy, block the phenomenon of speculation, improve roductive commodity chains, stimulate investment and aid directed to zones of the world which have an agricultural vocation and low revenues. The G8 griculture is seen as an important step towards the establishment of a Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security. Even apart from the topic of food and agriculture, Africa has been elected a priority theme of the entire G8.
Important issues are on the table in terms both of strategies and of governance.
There is now general agreement regarding the need to promote smallholder food production, particularly in food dependent developing countries.
How to do so, however, is open to discussion and the strategies proposed by the African farmers themselves need to be publicized and defended. Regarding governance of food and agriculture, civil society organizations generally are advocating the establishment of a single global forum for policy decision-making under the auspices of the United Nations, with a participatory and transparent mode of functioning. What do the smallholder food producers of Africa have to say about their role in governance and the conditions that have to be met for them to fulfill it?
The G8 Agriculture, coming after the High Level Meeting on Food Security held in Madrid in January 2009, will be an important step towards the meetings taking place in FAO this fall at which both strategy and governance will be discussed in a UN setting.
This event is organized with the contribution of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission and Vredeleisanden (Belgium), Agriterra (Netherlands), Collective stratégies allimentaires (Belgium), Terra Nuova, Centro Internazionale Crocevia and Coldiretti (Italy)
* West Africa Network of Peasant and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations (ROPPA), East African Farmers’ Federation (EAFF) Regional Platform of Peasant Organizations of Central Africa (PROPAC), Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) and Union Maghrébine des Agriculteurs (UMAGRI).
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