On May 18, 19 and 20, the World Farmers’ Organisation, as the leading partner of the Farmers’ Major Group, participated in the Expert Group Meetings organised by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in preparation for the 2021 United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

On May 18, Luisa Volpe, WFO Head of Policy Development, participated in a session about SDG2. She took the floor on behalf of the Farmers’ Major Group to underline the high relevance of the agricultural sector for our society’s economic, social and environmental development, even more during the COVID19 pandemic and the recovery period. In her intervention, she called for governments to repurpose agricultural policies towards a farmers-driven approach to achieve fairer and more resilient food systems.

On May 19 and 20, the WFO President Theo De Jager addressed the session on SDG 12 and the cross-cutting one on SDG 12, 13, 17. Among other things, Dr De Jager reminded the audience that there is a huge amount of food that go lost and wasted not only at the farm level but throughout the entire value chain, including at the consumers’ level. He also said that there is no stronger partnership than the one between consumers and producers. Farmers are ready to look at what can be done better as long as everyone keeps in mind that farming is a business and business needs to be sustainable.