Interregional dialogues and LANDNET identify solutions on land access and governance for family farming

More than 140 participants from 50 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia are identifying innovative solutions to advance the development of policy recommendations that promote inclusive access to land and effective tenure governance for family farming, contributing to greater resilience in the face of conflict, climate and economic shocks. 

This meeting, taking place from September 8 to 10 in Budapest, Hungary, is being held as part of the second session of the Interregional Dialogues on Family Farming, jointly with the 17th International LANDNET Workshop, a network comprising more than 300 experts from over 40 countries. 

Bringing these two platforms together allows the exchange of LANDNET’s accumulated experience with examples from Latin America and the Caribbean regarding land governance, land consolidation and management, generational renewal, and women’s access to land. This last challenge is particularly relevant considering that women own only 15 percent of agricultural land, despite representing nearly 50 percent of the sector's workforce. 

The dialogue, organized as part of the activities of the Regional Technical Platform for Family Farming and the Regional Technical Platform on Green Agriculture, also presented experiences related to the design and implementation of institutional frameworks that facilitate access to land, as well as examples of the development of management tools such as multipurpose cadastres that support land-use tenure planning and tenure consolidation processes. 

“By bringing together experiences from five continents, we create a unique opportunity to learn from one another and to identify solutions that can be adapted and scaled in different contexts,” said Viorel Gutu, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia, at the opening of the event. “Let us use this opportunity to build new partnerships and advance solutions that improve the lives of rural people and strengthen the resilience of our agrifood systems," he added. 

For his part, the Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative of FAO’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Rene Orellana Halkyer, welcomed this joint space for dialogue, which brings together diverse stakeholders to identify proposals and policy solutions that benefit family farming. “Your contributions are essential to advancing solutions that strengthen family farming, promote more equitable access to land, and contribute to building more sustainable agrifood systems,” he emphasized. 

The results and recommendations from the three days of dialogue will provide key inputs to the Global Solutions Forum on Family Farming, to be held in November in Rome, Italy. 

About Interregional Dialogues on Family Farming and LANDNET 

The second edition of the interregional dialogues follows a solutions-oriented approach focused on identifying solutions, interregional learning, and strengthening institutional capacities. It also contributes to the actions of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028. 

The dialogues are organized by FAO and the Government of Brazil, through Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ABC/MRE) and the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), within the framework of the Brazil-FAO South-South Cooperation Program. 

LANDNET is a community of practice and a technical network of land tenure professionals supported by FAO. The network comprises representatives from academia, governments, civil society, and private sectors in Europe and Central Asia and other regions. Since 2002, it has organized annual regional workshops on various land tenure related topics such as land consolidation, land banking, state land management, land abandonment and land market development.