Food Producers’ Declaration for the UN Food Systems Summit

Reshaping food systems lies at the heart of the 2030 Agenda, as achieving poverty alleviation, food and nutrition security, and equitable and inclusive societies greatly depend upon achieving sustainable food systems. Farmers, fishers, forest users and dwellers, aquaculturists, herders, pastoralists, and all food producers are at the center of the food systems and should be positioned as key actors in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Food Producers are the backbone of our society because everywhere at the beginning there was a fisher or farming family on a field, forest, or bodies of water, cultivating crops, breeding or herding livestock, or fishing. Despite providing critical nutrition and livelihoods to billions of people, Food Producers, particularly in developing countries, are amongst the world’s poorest, hungriest, and most marginalized sectors of society. This is why we, the Food Producers, fully support and are invested in the current Decade of Action to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to 2019-2028 being the United Nations Decade on Family Farmers, and to 2022 being the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture and to 2026 as the International Year of Rangeland and Pastoralists.

In response to these challenges we, Food Producers from different corners of the world, have come together to present our solutions as one collective voice. These solutions are the result of a series of Food Systems Summit Independent Dialogues conducted by organizations representing Food Producers across every continent, in the context of the preparation of the United Nations Food Systems Summit.

We call for urgent and concrete actions to facilitate the transition to more resilient, healthy, nutritious, sustainable, just, inclusive and empowering food systems. It is unimaginable to engage in any conversation or build coalitions around food systems without the active involvement of Food Producers as equal partners.