Subsistence mixed crop and livestock farmers

Crop and Livestock Drought Programs

foreman: other farming, horticultural and animal-husbandry occupations

farmer [ cultivator | holder of a farm | horticulturist | share-cropper | stock breeder | stock owner | winegrower ]

Subsistence crop farmers

How the Law Applies to Me If--I Am a Farmer or a Rancher

Observes that agricultural investment policies mostly focus on large-scale land acquisitions and on export-oriented agriculture that is usually unrelated to local economies; notes that the development of extensive irrigation in the targeted geographical investment areas of NAFSN may reduce water availability for other users, such as small-scale farmers or pastoralists; stresses that under those circumstances the ability of mega-PPPs to contribute to poverty reduction and food security must be critically assessed and improved; emphasises that agricultural investment policies should be linked to and should support the development of the ...[+++] local economy, including smallholders and family farming; recalls that the FAO Tenure Guidelines recommend secure access to land in order to allow families to produce food for household consumption and to increase household income; stresses the need to base large-scale land-based investment in Africa on these guidelines, ensuring smallholders’ and local communities’ access to land, promoting local SME investment. and ensuring that PPPs contribute to food security and to reducing poverty and inequality.

The second will contribute to the strengthening of livelihoods of vulnerable rural smallholders and pastoralists in main livestock production areas of Southern and Eastern Sudan (€9 million).

Recalls that farmers’ right to produce, exchange and sell seeds freely underpins 90 % of agricultural livelihoods in Africa, and that seed diversity is vital in building resilience of farming to climate change; stresses that corporate requests to strengthen plant breeders’ rights in line with the 1991 UPOV Convention must not result in such informal arrangements being prohibited.

Urges the Commission to ensure that, alongside technological and scientific innovations, traditional techniques and farms can continue to flourish, given that these are an immense asset, being a source of cultural, rural, historical and tourism diversity, and provide a livelihood for numerous European small-scale farmers in a whole variety of regions.