2019, year of the milk campaign
2019 was the year of the milk campaign to support dairy farmers, both at home and abroad ! The year was rich in awareness-raising actions among citizens and politicians with significant progress was made.
About
SOS Faim is a Belgian development NGO, active since 1964 in the fight against hunger and poverty in rural areas in Africa and Latin America.
OUR VISION : A WORLD WITHOUT HUNGER
821 million people in the world suffer from hunger, 50% of whom are peasants and their families who live mainly in developing countries. This is the paradox of hunger : while farmers feed the world, they are among its first victims.
Why such a paradox? Because they are poor. They do not have sufficient purchasing power to have access to sufficient food.
For SOS Faim, family farming is a model that allows farmers to have access, for themselves and for others, to food security and sovereignty.
Because a world without hunger is possible.
Our mission : to support family farming
The overall objective of SOS Faim is to fight hunger and poverty by supporting family farming.
We work in two main ways :
- Strengthening the capacities of farmers in Africa and Latin America by providing them with technical, organisational and financial assistance so that they themselves improve their food, economic and social situation in a sustainable way and can ultimately become self-sufficient.
- Raising awareness and mobilising Belgian and European citizens in order to influence, together with our partners in the South, policies that have an impact on hunger and poverty in developing countries.
Our approach : partnership
We have no expatriates, we prefer to enter into partnerships: we work closely with local partners such as farmers’ organisations, producers’ associations or microfinance institutions.
We do not give handouts; rather we support our partners in their own actions to help people in the South become masters of their own destiny.
Our values
Responsibility | Solidarity | Autonomy | Respect for human dignity, gender and the environment | Fairness | Democracy | Humanism by putting men and women at the heart of the work of SOS Faim | Social, economic and climate justice.
Family farming to feed the world
The current agro-industrial model is showing its limits; we produce more food than we need to feed everyone, but nearly one billion people are going hungry. If hunger has that many victims today, how will we feed 9 billion people in 2050?
On the environmental level, the agro-industrial model also has many inconveniences: soil depletion, massive use of water reserves, land erosion, etc.
Family farming systems have immense potential to meet the challenges of food security, social equity and environmental sustainability:
- A guarantee of sustainable food : Family farming systems produce 70% of the world’s food and employ 40% of the population. Supporting them is therefore making a direct contribution to food security.
- An anti-poverty weapon : According to the World Bank, developing agriculture is two to four times more effective in fighting poverty than developing other sectors.
- Environmentally friendly : Family farming systems help protect biodiversity and sustainable natural resource use.
