It happened at the 2nd International Symposium on Agroecology, organized by FAO in Rome from 3rd till 5th April 2018. A special edition of Farming Matters and her sister magazines Agridape, Agriculturas and LEISA India was launched. A lot has happened since the first Agroecology Symposium took place in 2014.  The focus of international and … Read more

Even though the current president of the USA, Donald Trump, denies climate change, for hundreds of millions of small scale family farmers it has become a daily reality. “We are living with climate change,” say farmers in the Sahel. “We just have to deal with it.” People have always lived with unpredictable circumstances but due … Read more

Dear readers, As you may be aware, ILEIA has to close its doors as an organisation on 1 July 2017, after more than 30 years of work to support family farming rooted in agroecology. The reason for this decision is that we did not succeed in raising enough funds to keep the organisation going in … Read more

In a special issue of Farming Matters, ILEIA and Bioversity International embark on a joint effort to document lessons learned in access and benefit sharing of genetic resources for and by family farmers. Why is this necessary? For family farmers, maintaining biodiversity is an essential pillar of their strategies. This is all the more so … Read more

Around the world, women forge change in their communities using agroecological approaches. Yet, surprisingly little has been written about this subject. This issue of Farming Matters shows how women can transform a situation of exclusion, crisis and social vulnerability, into a positive spiral of innovation, solidarity, and personal growth. Many innovations led by women are … Read more

Farming for nutrition: back to the future Nutrition has become one of the buzz words of the year, like resilience, and landscapes. What they have in common is that they refer to complex situations with political forces competing over the backs of rural and urban communities. The nutrition challenge is clear – with a billion … Read more

Leading up to the December 2014 Global Landscapes Forum in Peru, this issue explores how family farming, pastoralist and forest communities are responding to the increasing pressures on their landscapes, creating space for their own development path and reconstructing their landscapes. The ‘landscape approach’ has been increasingly promoted during recent years as a new perspective … Read more

Half way through the International Year of Family Farming, in many parts of the world, family farmers are celebrating and discussing their future with policy makers and civil society. But most poor rural communities struggling for their daily survival continue to be unaware of even the existence of such a year. The IYFF is intended … Read more

We have read about poverty, vulnerability and resilience of family farming. The articles in this issue of Farming Matters have shown that there is an urgent need for a change in mindset regarding family farming, agriculture and food systems. And resilience must be the central concept in this new thinking. Resilience The term ‘resilience’ has … Read more

The year 2014 has been proclaimed by the UN as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF). As several articles in this issue of Farming Matters point out, it makes a great deal of sense to strengthen family farming. Yet there are powerful forces pulling agriculture into a very different direction, as can be seen … Read more