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 11 - 15 of 76Farmers' Innovations from Nepal
Though NLRF's members are focused on land rights issues, many of its members are innovating products like beans and seeds. Organic beans are used as vegetables and lentils. When dried and added some sugar, they become favorite snacks for people travelling in buses. There is also pink organic lentils grown in the field as rotating crop with rice. It is a remedy for some ailments. There is also hot plant, which gives something like electric current when you touch them. Poor people collect it from the forest and make soup out of it. It is known for its nutritional and medicinal value.
Asian Farmers and IYFF: What is it for us during the International Year of Family Farming?
As opposed to agribusiness or corporate farming, FAO defined family farming as “a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family, both female and male. The family and the farm are linked, co-evolve and combine economic, environmental, reproductive, social and cultural functions.
MTCP2: Views from farmer organizations in Southeast Asia
Sophal Uon, Chairperson of AFA, talks about what the MTCP2 means for farmers and farmer organizations in Southeast Asia (22 November 2013, Bangkok, Thailand)
MTCP2 Official Launch Video
Video teaser shown during the official launch of MTCP2 on November 23, 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand
Trends, Patterns and Trajectories in Brokering Small Scale Farmer Engagement with Private Enterprises in Selected Countries of Southeast Asia
The agri food system across the globe is fast restructuring. While smallholder farmers remain to be a major stakeholder, situation changes from where “the farm producing what the household consumes and consumes what the farm produce” to “the farm sourcing inputs outside the farms and producing beyond the farm for other households/communities/cities as well”.