We are a regional alliance of 17 national federations and organizations of small scale women and men farmers and producers from 13 countries in Asia.
We were established in 2002 after a series of farmers’ exchange visits (FEVs) organized by our strategic NGO partner, AsiaDHRRA (Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Asia).
In these five FEVs, conducted over three years, we saw the great need to come, share, learn and act together to-wards our common desire for a better quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our farming communities.
AFA invites national farmers’ organiza-tions as members and works with NGOs in facilitating the formation of national farmers’ organizations and in continuously building their capacities.
It convenes a General Assembly every two years and an Executive Committee meeting every semester.
Our Vision
We envision our rural farming communities as:
- Self-reliant, educated, happy, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous–free from hunger and poverty.
- Having access to and control over our lands, other basic productive resources, goods and services.
- Having access to fair markets for our products.
- Nurturing our farmlands via appro-priate, integrated, and environment-friendly practices and technologies.
- Participating in development processes through politically strong, socially responsive, culturally sensitive and economically viable FOs.
Our Mission
We aim to be:
- A strong and influential voice of small- scale women and men farmers in Asia.
- A strong lobby and advocacy group for farmers’ rights and development, genuine agrarian reform, and main- streaming sustainable agriculture in regional and national policies and programs.
- A facilitator in the trading and marketing of our members’ products.
- A venue for solidarity and exchange of information on agriculture and farmers’ development for our members.
Our Peasant Agenda
Together, we work to:
- Promote sustainable agricultural policies and practices.
- Study and promote alternatives to economic globalization.
- Promote agriculture among the young.
- Promote fair and just treatment of small-scale women and men farmers.
- Promote food sovereignty measures.
- Promote farmer-to-farmer market exchanges.
- Push for provisions on access to farm resources and rural development, and protection of small-scale women and men farmers’ rights in Asian inter-governmental bodies (ASEAN, SAARC, etc)
- Support environmentally-friendly adaptation and mitigation measures for climate change.
- Strengthen AFA at the national and regional levels.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 31 - 35 of 76Farmers' Voices, Farmers' Choices: In the Time of Climate Change
Farmers' Voices, Farmers' Choices: In the Time of Climate Change
Smallholder Agriculture and Food Systems: Responding to the Challenge of Food Price Volatility
In 2008, Ka Lita, a woman rice farmer in the Philippines, stood in a long line to buy rice that was being sold by the National Food Authority (NFA), the government’s rice trading agency. She had been standing under the hot sun for several hours, but she had no choice but to wait for her turn to buy rice from the NFA. The rice being sold by the government’s rice trading agency was the only rice that she could afford with her money.
Coconut Farmers and Climate Change
A short video about climate change impacts and responses among small coconut farmers in the Philppines
Agroecology and Advocacy: Innovations in Asia
Rising food prices, increasing climate instability and food riots have sparked profound political changes around the world and put agriculture high on the international agenda. What kind of agriculture is best suited to respond to those challenges, however, is the subject of profound disagreement. Too much of the current policy debate on food security, climate change and agriculture assumes that industrial agriculture and related biotechnology are the only options for feeding a growing global population.
Participatory Research on the Gender Dimension of Food Security amidst Climate Change
Addressing the problem of hunger in a world where food production systems, particularly in developing countries, are being eroded and undermined by climate change is one of the most important challenges of our time. Studies by the Food and Agriculture organization (FAO), Oxfam and the Asian Development Bank, among others, underscore the significance of climate change impacts on agriculture and food production (FAO 2007, Oxfam 2009, ADB 2009).