Farm producer organizations – Operating systems for the SDGs: Strength in numbers

Responding to the new global development agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this publication argues that forest and farm producer organizations (FFPOs) are effective operating systems to deliver the SDGs. In fact it may be difficult to reach the most marginalised and excluded people at scale without them. Agriculture and forestry have links to all 17 of the SDGs, and smallholder producers control a significant proportion of the world’s farm and forest resources, so FFPOs are a vital part of the sustainability equation. As the first Strength in Numbers 1 explained, individual producers can overcome isolation by forming self-governing groups; their concerted action has benefits across the globe.

Examples are arranged under five themes – the first four cover key aspects of FFPO activities; the fifth looks at partnerships.