Representatives of Farmers’ Organizations,
Dear partners and friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to IFAD’s headquarters for the fourth Global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum.

I know that many of you have travelled a great distance to be with us today. You do us a great honour. It is through gatherings like this that we can learn from each other.

I hope that over the coming days you will have a chance to network, exchange experiences and enhance your skills. Certainly, these unique meetings help shape IFAD’s thinking and actions and I am sure that our staff will participate actively.  

On Saturday I had the privilege to attend a special session on Youth in Agriculture. The session was a direct response to a request of the last Farmers’ Forum, when it became clear that we needed a platform to hear the experiences and views of young rural people from different regions.

This year, around 30 young famers and rural entrepreneurs from around the world participated and the discussions were very lively.  I am personally very committed to strengthening IFAD’s support of young women and men so that they can choose and build their futures in rural areas.

Sustainable farming practices and environmental stewardship are other issues that I hope will be discussed over the coming days. This is the theme of our Governing Council this year. As we have seen from the droughts in the Horn of Africa last year and the Sahel now, and the floods that have recently devastated parts of Australia, Fiji and Mozambique – and even the unusual amount of snow here in Italy – farmers are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather and shifts in climate patterns.

This growing level of climate risk and uncertainty is one of the major challenges facing agriculture and food systems today, particularly where it is combined with land degradation, water scarcity and fierce competition for natural resources.

In June, we will be participating in the Rio Plus 20 Conference on Sustainable Development, where we will be discussing climate-smart and ecological solutions for the future of agriculture and food security. We must strengthen our collaboration and partnerships in the face of this global challenge. Here again I strongly believe in the capacity of young people to innovate and find the solutions of the future.  

At a time when competition for land and water has never been greater, we are keenly aware of the need for smallholder farmers, in particular women and youth, to have equitable access to land and secure land tenure. This is an essential condition for them to invest in sustainable and profitable agriculture.

To this end, we have been supporting FAO and the Committee on World Food Security in the development of Voluntary Guidelines for responsible governance of land tenure. In a few weeks, we expect these guidelines to be finalized.  The real challenge will be their implementation at country level.

Ladies and Gentlemen

In the six years since we held the first Farmers’ Forum meeting, we have made significant progress in expanding our partnership with farmers’ and producers’ organizations. Today, IFAD has relationships with farmers’ organizations in most of the countries where we operate.

When I say farmers’ organizations, I am referring to smallholders, family farmers, pastoralists and artisanal fishers. All of them have the potential to improve their business, and their associations, cooperatives and unions are essential in this regard.       

Consultation with farmers’ organizations is now the norm when we are formulating Country Strategies and designing agricultural and value chains development projects with governments. Indeed, in the two years since we last met, farmers’ organizations played a role in all new COSOPs and 90 per cent of projects designed in that period. But we are well aware that there is still more to do in terms of inclusiveness and consistency in these partnerships.

In the same period our direct financial support to farmers’ organisations, through grants, reached 80 national organisations in 60 countries. We managed to mobilise significant co-financing for this direct support, in particular from the European Commission. We reinforced our collaboration with FAO, with AgriCord and with research institutions to blend financial support with technical assistance.

This form of funding helps your organizations to engage in policy dialogue, lobbying and advocacy and to conduct research on behalf of members. We need to assess together the results of these collaborations.

I hope that by the conclusion of this Forum, we will have improved our understanding of how to make our partnerships even more effective.

I look forward for the results of your deliberations and wish you a very successful meeting.   

Thank you.

Rome, 20 February 2012