United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/72/239

Seventy-second session Agenda item 25

The General Assembly,

Recognizing the success of the International Year of Family Farming, declared by the General Assembly in its resolution 66/222 of 22 December 2011 and implemented in 2014, which raised the profile of the role of family farming, pastoralism and smallholder farming in contributing to the achievement of food security and improved nutrition,

Welcoming the fact that many countries have made significant progress in developing public policies in favour of family farming, including the formation of national committees for family farming, and making financial inclusion policies for smallholder farmers, such as small-scale credit loans, and recognizing the role that family farms play in improving nutrition and ensuring global food security, eradicating poverty, ending hunger, conserving biodiversity, achieving environmental sustainability and helping to address migration,

Recalling the creation of the Family Farming Knowledge Platform, and recognizing that sharing knowledge and data contributes to policy dialogue and policymaking to address the specific needs of family farms,

Recognizing the important role of science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in supporting smallholders, including pastoralists and family farmers, in particular women and youth in rural areas, and in that regard highlighting the importance of innovation-driven development and support to mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and welcoming new sustainable agricultural technologies that can contribute to the transition of smallholders from subsistence farming to innovative, commercial production, helping them to increase their own food security and nutrition, generate marketable surpluses and add value to their production,

Recognizing also the close links between family farming, the promotion and conservation of historical, cultural and natural heritage, traditional customs and culture, halting the loss of biodiversity and the improvement of the living conditions of people living in rural areas,

Stressing the role of different forest types, including boreal, temperate and tropical, in supporting family farming,

Reaffirming the importance of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture farms for food security and nutrition,

Noting the convening of the thirty-first session of the Regional Conference for Europe of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Voronezh, Russian Federation, in May 2018, with a focus on agricultural, food security and nutrition issues, including their links with climate change,

Mindful of the guidelines for international decades in economic and social fields set out in Economic and Social Council resolution 1989/84 of 24 May 1989,

Reaffirming its resolution 70/1 of 25 September 2015, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, in which it adopted a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative Sustainable Development Goals and targets, its commitment to working tirelessly for the full implementation of the Agenda by 2030, its recognition that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, its commitment to achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions — economic, social and environmental — in a balanced and integrated manner, and to building upon the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals and seeking to address their unfinished business,

Reaffirming also its resolution 69/313 of 27 July 2015 on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, which is an integral part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, supports and complements it, helps to contextualize its means of implementa tion targets with concrete policies and actions, and reaffirms the strong political commitment to address the challenge of financing and creating an enabling environment at all levels for sustainable development in the spirit of global partnership and solidarity,

Welcoming the Paris Agreement and its early entry into force, encouraging all its parties to fully implement the Agreement, and parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that have not yet done so to deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, where appropriate, as soon as possible,

Recalling the proclamation of 2016–2025 as the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition, based on the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action,

Recalling also that nearly 80 per cent of the extreme poor live in rural areas and work in agriculture, and that devoting resources to the development of rural areas and sustainable agriculture and supporting smallholder farmers, especially women farmers, is key to ending poverty in all its forms and dimensions, by, inter alia, improving the welfare of farmers,

Recognizing that 815 million people throughout the world still suffer from hunger and that the prevalence of other forms of malnutrition is still considerable in some regions of the world, and stressing the important role of family farms in the production of more than 80 per cent of the world’s food in terms of value,

Stressing that a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system will promote agriculture, family farming and rural development in developing countries and contribute to world food security and nutrition, and urging the adoption of national, regional and international strategie s to promote the inclusive participation of farmers, especially small-scale and family farmers, including women, in community, national, regional and international markets,

Reaffirming that the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls will make a crucial contribution to progress across all of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets, reaffirming also the critical role and contribution of rural women, including smallholders and women farmers, indigenous women and women in local communities, and their traditional knowledge in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty, and in this regard stressing the importance of reviewing agricultural policies and strategies to ensure that the critical role of women in food security and nutrition is recognized and addressed as an integral part of both shortand long-term responses to food insecurity, malnutrition, potential excessive price volatility and food crises in developing countries,

Stressing the need to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and acknowledging that policies and programmes that promote innovation on family farms must go hand in hand with policies promoting overall rural development, so as to offer additional or alternative employment and income-generating opportunities in rural areas,

Recognizing the positive impacts of collaboration among family farmers through farmer-to-farmer cooperation as essential to the creation of environments conducive to supporting the exchange of experience and knowledge to scale up relevant, cost-effective, traditional and innovative solutions towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,

Conscious that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet, that it is seriously affecting agriculture throughout the world and that supporting family farming could contribute to combating climate change as well as to increasing the ability to adapt to its adverse impacts and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development in a manner that does not threaten food production,

Recalling the need to strengthen our efforts to enhance food security and nutrition and to focus on smallholders and women farmers, as well as on agricultural cooperatives and farmers’ networks, and the need to encourage countries to revitalize global partnerships,

Recognizing the importance of South-South and triangular cooperation in promoting family farming and addressing the problem of food insecurity through the exchange of knowledge, experience and good practices, innovative policies, knowhow and resources,

1. Decides to proclaim 2019–2028 the United Nations Decade of Family Farming, within existing structures and available resources;

2. Encourages all States to develop, improve and implement public policies on family farming and share their experiences and best practices of family farming with other States;

3. Calls upon the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development to lead the implementation of the Decade, in collaboration with other relevant organizations of the United Nations system, including by identifying and developing possible activities and programmes, within their mandates and existing resources and through voluntary contributions, as appropriate;

4. Invites Governments and other relevant stakeholders, including international and regional organizations, civil society, the private sector and academia, to actively support the implementation of the Decade, including through voluntary contributions, as appropriate;

5. Invites the Secretary-General to inform the General Assembly about the implementation of the Decade on the basis of the biennial reports compiled jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

74th plenary meeting 20 December 2017