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 41 - 45 of 76Farmers’ Regional Trade Agenda: Farmers’ Collective Voice on Trade in the ASEAN Region
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying hard to go into free trade agreements (FTAs) with different countries. It believes that this will increase trade and help members sell their export products to more markets in other countries. It also wants to make ASEAN the world's center of agricultural production. But in opening up markets and increasing trade, more imported goods from other countries can also come in.
Critical Issues on the Growing Market Power of Transnational Agribusinesses
There is a need to distinguish between small-scale, subsistence family-based farming, small to medium scale businesses in the agriculture sector that is the predominant mode in the global south on one hand and; the operations of agribusiness (whether a large local corporation or transnational corporation) found in the agricultural sector of many countries that are typically large in size and capital on the other.
Critical Issues on the Growing Market Power of Transnational Agribusinesses
WHAT IS MEANT BY AGRIBUSINESS?
Agribusiness as used in this paper refers to very big corporations that produce, process, trade, and market agricultural food products and agricultural inputs. Examples are corporations that produce inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers, and those that produce for supermarkets and retail chains. Transnational agribusiness companies are those that operate in the agriculture sector of many countries, usually with a huge volume of business.
The Global Financial Crisis: What it is and How it Affects Small-Scale Men and Women Farmers in the ASEAN Region
This issue paper is about what is known as the “global financial crisis,” which is said to have affected the economies in Europe and North America and caused massive loss of jobs and bankruptcy in these countries. For some of us here in the developing world, the global financial crisis may seem very far from us and therefore, has no effect on us. We may even think that it is something that only concerns economists and the business sector.
Farmers Trade Agenda in ASEAN
This research is intended to help contribute to this articulation process by identifying and consolidating small farmers' trade agenda in five countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries represent a good mix of both net agricultural exporters and importers, providing the paper with a balanced perspective of looking at trade and its impact on small farmers. The agenda of small farmers in these countries formed the bases for the formulation of their trade agenda in ASEAN. The research is divided into three parts.