Advocate
Our advocacy work
In addition to the projects we carry out around the world, AVSF also fights for more fairness in international relations and refuses to consider hunger, poverty and exclusion as simply inevitable. We take action in both the Global North and South to defend the rights of smallholder farmers. We support local and international policies that are more favourable to smallholders, whether those policies are agricultural, environmental or economic, or whether they deal with market regulation, animal health or public health.
Drawing on our technical expertise and our experience working with smallholder organisations, our proposals are compiled in policy briefs covering different topics, which we present with our partners to public authorities.
Collective actions in France and abroad
We carry out three complementary types of action in France and Europe, most often within groups of organisations and networks of partners for greater effectiveness:
– participation in awareness-raising campaigns and public outreach
– statements in the media
– engagement with economic and political decision-makers in order to present specific proposals to them
In France, we are members of Collectif Nourrir, Commerce Équitable France and other groups of organisations.
At international level, we participate in the negotiations of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), as a member of the Civil Society Mechanism, and in the “Cocoa Talks” of the European Commission to defend the interests of small cocoa producers in fairer and more equitable markets. With our partners from the VSF-International network, we are active within a number of international forums and bodies to promote greater participation of livestock-farming communities in defining the policies and programmes that are relevant to them.
Supporting the advocacy work of our partners in the Global South
In the countries where we carry out our projects, we assist our partners (smallholder organisations, local NGOs, smallholder unions, etc.) in their efforts to influence their own governments. We support the development of national sectoral policies and local policies with local authorities, who are more in favour of smallholder farming.
In Senegal
After several months of dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture, AVSF and its partners, united in a platform for agroecology, got the government to subsidise organic fertilisers in 2021 and 2022.
In Ecuador
AVSF helped Amazonian organisations formulate a proposal to reform the law on land and territories in order to make it more redistributive. In 2022, that proposal was submitted to Ecuador’s National Assembly by a large coalition of smallholder organisations, in order for it to be analysed and hopefully lead to a revision of the current law.
Contact
Carline MAINENTI
Head of advocacy
c.mainenti@avsf.org
