Building family farming production capacity should be a priority for all countries

    Yao Xiangjun, director of the Liaison Office of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Geneva, said in an exclusive interview with a Xinhua News Agency reporter in Geneva on the 15th that family farming is key to safeguarding global food security and reducing rural poverty, and that all countries should focus on building family farming production capacity and promote better integration of the concept of sustainable development with agricultural production.

Yao Xiangjun said that family farming is the mainstay of global agricultural production; of the world's 570 million farms, 500 million are family-owned, and these family farming units produce nearly 60 percent of the world's agricultural products each year. The United Nations General Assembly designated 2014 as the “International Year of Family Farming”, demonstrating that the international community recognizes the important contribution of family farming to global food security.

It is reported that family farming is a systemic issue involving many questions such as the ownership of the means of production, labor skills and education, protection of women's rights and interests, and prevention of child labor. October 16 is World Food Day, and this year is also the “International Year of Family Farming”, so the UN Food and Agriculture Organization hopes to use this year's World Food Day to make people think about how to help family farming improve its ability to cope with climate change, and how to better integrate the concept of sustainable development with agricultural production.

According to Yao Xiangjun, for this year's World Food Day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization will not only hold a themed photo exhibition at the Palais des Nations, the site of the United Nations Office at Geneva, but will also co-host a celebration with the Swiss canton of Geneva, inviting local family farmers from the canton of Geneva to display self-produced agricultural products such as wine, cheese, fruits and vegetables at the Palais des Nations.

It is reported that in promoting the development of family farming, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has in recent years introduced the “Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security”, providing technical support and guidance for countries when formulating agricultural development policies in accordance with their national conditions, so that family farmers can obtain agricultural means of production on an equal basis.

Yao Xiangjun said that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Chinese government have always maintained good cooperative relations. Over the long term, the Chinese government, upholding the attitude of “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, has unconditionally passed on its successful policy experience, management experience and agricultural technology in agricultural production to some developing countries with weak agriculture, playing a key role in improving these countries' agricultural production capacity over the long term.

Yao Xiangjun believes that the Chinese government has consistently and actively supported the work of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which sends a clear signal to the international community: China not only pays attention to its own food security, but also cares about global food security, and is willing to actively help developing countries facing food security challenges improve their agricultural production capacity.