How will you engage your Family during the UNDFF 2019-2028? (Part 1)

My Perspectives: Article #18 - By Peter Babul Jr

In December 2017, Resolution A/RES/72/239 (https:undocs.org/A/RES/72/239) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2019-2028 the United Nations Decade of Family Farming. The UN Resolution calls upon the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to lead the implementation of the Decade in collaboration with other relevant organizations of the United Nations system and invited governments and other relevant stakeholders, including international and regional organizations, civil society, the private sector and academia, to actively support the implementation of the Decade. So the question is, How will you engage your Rural Families in this Global Action Plan?

The UN Decade for Family Farming (UNDFF) from my perspective has commenced in the most important decade in the history of PNG. For I believe that we are the generation that will either make or break the future of our children depending on how we commit ourselves to what we need to do for our families, and what we need to do for our country. And especially for this day and age where we are at the forefront of the Digital Age in Papua New Guinea, the way we run our Businesses, Individual lives, families and organizations will never be the same again. So having said that, I see that it is highly important that the next 10 years of Family Farming in Papua New Guinea should involve the use of Digital Technology from Urban families all the way to remote families. The question is: How?

Now looking back to the previous two Articles I published in a Two Part series on “How to Make PNG the Richest Black Christian Country”, I outlined a strategy that can be implemented by all families in PNG from Urban areas all the way to remote areas. The Strategy is that all families in PNG no matter where they are can serve as Remote Executive Assistants and this can enable them to do more than just farming and they can generate additional income. I wrote down this strategy without knowing about the UN Decade of Family Farming but it turns out that this strategy could be the very thing that Papua New Guinea can support and implement as a nation. For with a simple tablet, solar chargers and the Digicel network, families in PNG can collaborate and participate on the UNDFF Platform.

In addition to the Strategy for PNG families to become wealthy through the application of Remote Executive Assistance, I also included a thought that all Family Heads in PNG should consider. The thought of every Family Head being Strategic Managers of this country. You see, as long as you have time, energy and resources and a family to take care of, you are a Strategic Manager. In fact, all Family Heads in every community in Papua New Guinea are Strategic Managers and they should be gathering every weekend to strategically manage and strategically plan the next 10 years of their communities and what they wish to see in the their communities in the next 10 years. And if all family heads actually do that every weekend, PNG will definitely move forward in the next 10 years.

But what if you say that you live in the city and the UN Decade of Family Farming does not apply to you because you do not have any land to do any form of farming? Well this is the part where I will tell you that it is possible for “every” Papua New Guinean to participate in the UNDFF, as long as you are an REA. For example, my Family in the village is the Ngowang Family Association. But the Family Heads in our Family Group lack the skills and knowledge to run as a Business Entity. And my brother and I live in Port Moresby but we are consulting them as REAs. At present we have assisted them with the BOD Minutes and their Incorporators Meeting Minutes and then we will work with them throughout the rest of the process. So let’s use my family as a Case Study in Family Farming.

To study my Family and our Case on Family Farming, let us go back to Article #1 titled Mr Yes and Mrs No, where I told the story of how my Mom and Dad, back in 2005, moved to the village after dad retired. To cut the long story short, the transition wasn’t easy from City Life to Village life but there was something amazing that mom and dad did that can inspire all of us. From 6 Chickens and 2 ducks, and one tea bag box and six packets of sugar, mom and dad ended up with 400 chickens, 48 ducks and a store full of cartons of store goods. And guess how long do you think it took mom and dad to raise all of that? Six months. That’s right. Six months to rise from nothing to something. Okay using that as an example, we will now look at how our family will adopt the UNDFF and apply it ourselves.

Now before we discuss the UNDFF and how we intend to adopt it as a family, let us first look at the Concept of Family Farming as proposed by the International Steering Committee of the IYFF. By their Conceptual Definition, “Family Farming (including all family-based agricultural activities) is a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production that is managed and operated by a family, and is predominantly reliant on the family labour of both women and men. The family and the farm are linked, co-evolve and combine economic, environmental, social and cultural functions.” All these is consistent with the SDGs. Okay after looking at this conceptual definition of Family Farming, let us now consider the Vision Statement of the UN Decade of Family Farming.

The vision of the UN Decade of Family Farming: “A world where diverse, healthy and sustainable food and agricultural systems flourish, where resilient rural and urban communities enjoy a high quality of life in dignity, equity, free from hunger and poverty.” With that the Global Action Plan states that “Family Farming is essential to achieve this vision.” And with that it points out that “Sensible policies, programmes and regulations considering the needs of present and future generations must protect and expand the agency, inclusion economic capacity of family farmers, putting their diversity at the centre of sustainable development and contributing to the Agenda 2030.” Now that we know the Vision and Global Action Plan, let us look at the seven Pillars of the 7 Pillars of the UNDFF. 

I had a look at Pillar number one and all its objectives and its indicators. Then I had a look at the Indicative Actions from local level. It is a long list of more than 10 objectives to consider. And to start and to actually serve these objectives, I see that all of these objectives and indicators can be fulfilled with one simply action – Weekly Articles on Linked in and Facebook. For what these objectives are asking for are reliable, timely, local relevant data and evidence about the multidimensional performance of family farming. On the other hand, they are asking for continuous and meaning engagement. So I see no other better place to do that than on Facebook and LinkedIn. Now with that set as the first step for Family Heads in PNG to perform, let us look at and discuss Pillar number two.

With Pillar number two, the United Nations is calling out for the improved and active participation of youth in Family Farming, rural economy and decision making process. It is pushing for Youths to have access to natural resources, productive assets, education, information, infrastructure and financial services to markets. When you look closely at all the other objectives you will find that what they are asking for is simply for Young People to establish Youth Groups that will actively take ownership of the Family Farming concept and actively engage with other relevant stakeholders. So bringing all of these aspects together, again we can see that if these Youth Groups and Individuals create Facebook and LinkedIn Profiles and Pages and keep us up to date with their progress, most of these objectives will be achieved.

Pillar number three is structured similar to pillar two where women are supported just as much as the Youths in terms of access to natural resources, productive assets, education, information, infrastructure and financial services to markets. The key difference is the drive to reduce and eliminate violence against women. But in terms of the leadership role of rural women, I see that PNG women are actually the leaders in terms of Farming, transportation of food from the gardens all the way to cooking. I would only encourage more Women Associations to create their Facebook Pages and LinkedIn Profiles in order to have more engagements with other Papua New Guineans and the rest of the world with their progress and how they are adopting the UN Decade of Family Farming.

This Pillar is the most critical of all from my perspective as I will be reporting mostly from this pillar. This is mainly because my family in the village is trying to register our Family Association as a Business Entity. Being village people and lacking so much in terms of capacity, my brother and I in the city are communicating with our dad in the village via email to help our Family Association as Remote Executive Assistants. To me this establishes a new initiative I will describe as the “Urban Rural Partnership” where families in the Cities support families in the villages as Remote Executive Assistants. I also believe this will be the key strategy that will enable us to engage all Family Heads in PNG under this initiative. And from this, we can gather all the relevant data that we need.

Building on my Family’s Strategy as stated under Pillar #4, the next thing we are going to do is to combine our Family Groups under the authority of our Clan and Clan Leaders. This is important because all land and resources in the village is owned by the Clans. Now this is the point where the strategy I mentioned in the previous articles needs to be enacted, that all Family Heads in the Family Association and under the Clan need to sit down, talk and work together as Strategic Planners and Strategic Managers of the Clan Land and its resources. And as long as all these Family Associations are registered Business Entities, only then will we be able to achieve all of the objectives stated under Pillar #5. All Family Heads need to see themselves as Strategic Planners and Strategic Managers.

From my experience while living in the village from 2011 – 2017, I have seen that most of our Family Groups and Clan Associations do not work closely with the National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI). And even though there is more than enough knowledge and crops at NARI for Nutritious Food Crops, Climate-Resilient Food Systems and capacity building programs, our family in the villages simply do not access these services. As a way forward for our Family and Clan, we will try to encourage and increase our family’s engagement with NARI and with that, I believe we will be able to achieve all the objectives stated under Pillar #6. From my observation, communication is the only barrier because the English speaking members of our Clan have not been fully engaged in dialogues with NARI.

After going through all the objectives in Pillar #7 I can say that the full establishment and outcome of this Pillar is dependant entirely on the “Urban-Rural Partnership” as mentioned earlier, where families in the City like myself and my older brother will be engaging and supporting Family Associations in the village in terms of expertise and documentation. And this is the strategy we will be undertaking during the next 6 months of this first year of the UN Decade of Family Farming and all throughout the next 10 years. I see no other way for Rural Families to move forward but through an effective Partnership with Urban Families. And as long as we work together and document our progress, we will be able to see tangible and measurable results. Anyway, this article has given us an outline and overview of the UNDFF 2019-2928. In the next Article, we will go into the details of our Family Strategy. But all of this will result from my commitment toward my family. The main question, what will YOU commitment towards your family during this Decade of Family Farming?