Farming & Agriculture

Farming gives us our food. How we farm and what we farm is crucial for protecting biodiversity, reducing GHG emissions and keeping us healthy. As a result, farmers will play an essential role in helping to make important changes to our food system. We must find effective ways to protect farmers’ jobs, support them to grow nutritious food and help them to preserve natural environments.  

Sixty percent of the food consumed globally comes from small farms known as ‘smallholders’. They are a crucial part of the food system, and are especially important in low- and middle-income countries where they provide lots of food and jobs.  

Smallholders are facing growing challenges to the way they farm. Many of the solutions used by industrial farms (like antibiotics and fertiliser) don’t work so well on a smaller scale, and can have serious and dangerous impacts if they’re used in the wrong way.  

As smallholders work to survive, it’s important that we: 

• Ensure they keep their jobs and continue to provide food in environmentally friendly ways
• Learn from how these farmers and their communities connect with the land, and how local culture informs how we eat.