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On Agriculture and Food Day, an event hosted by the International Agri-food Network (IAFN) in the margins of the UN High-Level Political Forum in New York, it is time to summarize the importance of targeting Agriculture and Food, to be able to reach the SDGs.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) help to guide people and the planet towards a sustainable future, and they were created to do exactly this: measure progress and achievements towards this series of 17 goals. During the High-Level Political Forum, the United Nations is meant to work its member states to track progress on several of the SDGs to see how the world is doing on this ambitious journey. Solutions however cannot address just one goal, but must look to make a difference to several at once

Investments made in agriculture — the dominant occupation for the world’s poorest people — can do just that:  . The International Agri-Food Network advocated for several years, as the goals were developed, to make sure that a stand-alone goal on sustainable agriculture and food security would be established as part of the SDGs. This goal is SDG2: Ending Hunger.IAFN is hosting the event with the Farming First coalition, a group that has been advocating for agriculture programs to be ‘farmer-centred and knowledge-based’

On July 13, the International Agri-Food Network has partnered with a number of leading organizations to host “Agriculture and Food Day” to celebrate, discuss, negotiate, analyze, and brainstorm around the role of Agriculture and Food in relation to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The day will include a thematically-focused plenary session with high-level speakers including high-ranking UN diplomats, a series of roundtable discussions on inter-linkages in SDGs, and dynamic luncheon  featuring of youth in agriculture with the goal to raise awareness of the critical need for investment in Goal 2. 

You can follow the event on social media #Ag4SDGs

This blog post by  was originally posted on the EmergingAg blog.