Adaptation also in family farming

A proposal sent by Contag was one of the five most voted by the population

The National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (Contag), a grantee of iCS, hosted the Climate Adaptation Plan Workshop – Family Farming Sector, which took place on August 20 and 21. Organized by the Executive Secretariat of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA), the event had the objective to discuss and initiate the process of preparation for the Climate Adaptation Plan from the perspective of Family Farming.

Contag played an important role in this workshop, because it was the idea of the Confederation to create an Adaptation Plan focused on Family Farming. The proposal was forwarded through the Participatory Climate Plan, in which the population was invited to send ideas to help in the drafting of the document. The proposal reinforces “a plan of specific adaptation for Family Farming is crucial in order to guarantee public policies, offer resilience to the peoples from the countryside, waterways and forests and to boost low carbon agriculture for those who really need it and to offer real solutions.”

Around 70 people from different institutions were present, including representatives from the National Council for Sustainable Rural Development (Condraf), from the target areas of the MDA, and from other civil society organizations, social movements and academia.

During the event, effective prevention and emergency actions to deal with the impacts caused by climate change were discussed, with special attention to the sector of family farming, one of the most vulnerable to these risks, which can cause or aggravate food and nutritional insecurity and social inequalities. At the end of the Workshop, the Permanent Committee on Climate Emergency, Water Security, Renewable Energy and Energy Sovereignty was created within the scope of Condraf. The function of the body will be to monitor more closely all the processes linked to the climate agenda for Family Farming.

The Climate Plan will serve as a guide for the climate policy of the country until 2035, and has two main pillars: the National Mitigation Strategy, with a focus on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil, and the National Adaptation Strategy, whose objective is to reduce the vulnerability of cities and natural environments to climate change. The data and projections about adaptation for the policies of Family Farming will serve as a basis for the Interministerial Committee on Climate Change (CIM), which will integrate all the processes of participatory construction by society.

The proposal sent by Contag received 335 votes, one of the five most voted. Credit: Communication/Contag