The Devil is in the Smallholder Farm

According to Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich, low agricultural productivity is caused by use of inappropriate technology, inaccessible farm inputs, weak extension support services, and over reliance on rain-fed agriculture.

Mr. Rotich’s analysis of the problem of low agricultural productivity reminds me of the Indian fable of the blind men and an elephant. Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant’s body. The one who felt the tail said the elephant is like a rope; the one who felt the trunk said the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who felt the leg said the elephant was like a pillar; the one who felt the ear said the elephant was like a hand fan; the one who felt the belly said the elephant was like a wall; the one who held the tusk said the elephant was like a solid pipe.

Based on the counsel of “four blind men” Kenyan taxpayers will spend Ksh. 245 billion to improve agricultural productivity over the next five years. The fable of the elephant and the reductionist diagnosis of what ails Kenya’s agriculture exemplify the relativism, the hubris of experts and a lack of integrative systemic thinking around complex public policy questions. As experts, often woefully narrowly trained in our respective disciplines, we fail to admit that what we observe is not reality, but slivers of reality that submit to our constrained methods of inquiry.

Mr. Rotich’s spending plan to revitalize Kenya’s agriculture is not novel. Based on the same premises, Tanzania launched Kilimo Kwanza, its green revolution to transform agriculture in 2009. A recent review of implementation of Kilimo Kwanza has revealed fundamental failures. The growth rate of Tanzania’s agricultural sector was only 3.63% in 2012, significantly below the 6% target set by the Agricultural Sector Development Strategy. Tanzanian scholars argue that Kilimo Kwanza has marginalized small-scale farmers. According to the 2011 Tanzanian Human Rights Report, 67.6% of farmers interviewed reported that they had not benefited from Kilimo Kwanza. Kenya can and must learn from Tanzania’s experience.

I have worked in the field of agriculture for over two decades. I now believe that improving agricultural productivity is a “wicked”, “untamed” problem. It is one of the most dynamically complex, ill-structured public policy problems. Agricultural productivity is influenced by a legion of complex and dynamic, often connected, social, institutional, political and biophysical factors, including climate. Often, what we think are causes of low agricultural productivity such as use of inappropriate technology or inaccessible farm inputs are symptoms of other deep structural problems.

The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (New Alliance) was launched in 2012 under the US G8 Presidency to lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2022. The New Alliance seeks to mobilize responsible private sector investment in agriculture in Africa. So far, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Nigeria have joined the New Alliance. The New Alliance works closely with the Grow Africa partnership, the African Union, New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the World Economic Forum.

In my view, the New Alliance is a blind man holding a part of the elephant that is Africa’s low agricultural productivity problem. And the New Alliance says it feels like a lack of huge private sector investment. When they meet this week at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland, the G8 must be reminded that private sector investment in Africa’s agriculture will not be responsible or sustainable.

The New Alliance is prioritizing unfettered access to Africa’s land resources for multinational companies. The New Alliance cooperation framework is unnerving. For instance, the framework actions for Ethiopia require that the government incentivize international seed companies to operate in Ethiopian seed markets and refine the law to encourage long-term leasing.

Large-scale agriculture with a focus on industrial production models is highly destructive of the natural capital and allied ecosystem services. Furthermore, large agricultural estates covering millions of hectares give too much power and influence to agro-industry at the expense of smallholder producers. Invariably, private sector investments will target international export markets with little commitment to local food and nutritional security goals.

The approach of the New Alliance and Mr. Rotich’s plan are limited tactile abstractions. However, how they engage with and support smallholder farm families’ transition to commercially viable operations could have a huge impact on poverty, food and nutritional security. The devil is in the smallholder farm households.

Be Your Own Drummer

This is a transcript of a speech I made to the graduating class of 2013 at the Aga Khan Academy, June 14, 2013.

Ms. Jerri-Lynn, thank you so much for the kind words of introduction. It is a distinct honor and privilege for me to be the guest speaker today.

To the class of 2013; fortified by love and pride, patience and enormous sacrifice of your families; this is a great moment, a moment of great promise and great expectations.

To the distinguished faculty members, I am sure the class of 2013 is especially proud of you. You will be forever etched in their grateful hearts. Thank you so much for the years of hard work and dedicated service to these young men and women.

To the class of 2013, I must congratulate you on your achievement. And if your experience was like mine, this must be a truly incredible achievement. Lets face it; my presence here is pretty unlikely. I hated school. My only motivation for turning up in primary school was because it gave me the opportunity to play with my friends, and school was where we all hang out.  

I excelled in every sport, from soccer to high jump. At the end of every school term I was at the top of my class and the teachers comments were always predictable “playful and disruptive in the classroom”. 

High school was miserable. University was somewhat liberating. But I remember one undergraduate class; the when a professor came over to me asked why I was not writing as he dictated notes to the class. I said to him that I was waiting for him to make a point of his own, something he had not copied from the course textbook. I was just 20, evidently naïve and reckless.

But I am much older now.  And a little wiser too. So I would like to share some thoughts with you and hope you find an ace that you can keep.

The first thought is about Greatness

And I don’t mean greatness in the narrow self-idolatry, self-serving, self-promoting way. I mean greatness in service; always putting others’ needs before our own.

The scale of need in our society is great and daunting. But equally compelling is the abundance of our capacity for compassion, goodness and kindness. You must not be persuaded by cynicism and apathy, the belief that nothing can be done to heal the sick, alleviate hunger and poverty and make music to soothe broken souls.

As Robert F. Kennedy said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events”.

We live in an age in which the “wisdom of crowds” has become an accepted truism. “Peer pressure,” far from being a pernicious influence, is something we gravitate to, a source of self-nourishment. Not many of us are willing to take disapproval or censure from our friends, let alone from people we don’t fancy.

A great sociologist David Riesman argued that as the economy turned producers who manufacture goods into consumers buying them, the nature of our society changed. People went from being “inner-directed’ to being “outer-directed,” from heeding their own instincts and judgment to depending on the judgments and opinions of tastemakers and trendsetters and pop stars.

But if you listen to your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can strive for and achieve greatness.

As American author Mark Twain said, “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” So surround yourself not with small people and listen to your own voice; find yourself. 

St. Mathew wrote, “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”. But I say to you, class of 2013, fear not the path of greatness for the lack of people traveling on it.

Greatness will come not from the scale of your wealth or the size of your car or from your position in society. Greatness comes from service, sacrifice, and citizenship; a dogged commitment to give back, a stubborn determination to look not only after your own but to reach out in the service of others.

I hope the eternal words of the great English poet and preacher, John Donne, will ring true in your lives “Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Greatness comes through involvement in mankind.

The second thought is about marching to the beat of your own drum

In the age of the “wisdom of the crowds”, march to the beat of your own drum; not in the self-centered big ego kind of way; although a self-assured swagger helps with getting a date.

You need to strive to march to the beat of your own drum, follow the enchantment of your dream, and learn to be yourself. Do not follow the crowd.

I must admit it is not as easy as I make it sound. But it is how the big thinkers, entrepreneurs, army generals and inventors were able to make their dreams come true. You must learn to follow your heart. Following your heart will liberate you to enjoy more freedom and fulfillment. You must learn to be the master of your own destiny and thoughts, living everyday as if it was your last.

As Steve Jobs said to the class of 2005 at Stanford, “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition”.

The third thought is a about perseverance

In1972 Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel gathered 600 children. Then he made them a deal; they could eat one marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes and get two marshmallows. He followed these kids 15 years later. It turns out that the ability to hold out was correlated with greater success and self-control later in life.

That ability to delay gratification will keep you focused on achieving your goal; ignoring tempting distractions. That ability also lets us keep going toward that goal despite frustrations, sheer exhaustion and failure.

The larger point I want to make is that you must endure and persist and keep going in the toughest of time. In your life, and there is so much of it ahead of you, you will fail.  There will be many false starts and setbacks. You will stumble, and you will fall.  But always fall forward.

American inventor Thomas Edison, known for 1,000 patents failed 9,999 times before he perfected the light bulb. Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time is remembered for his six championships, not his nearly 15,000 missed shots. If you find yourself going through life with too few failures, it means only one thing; you have set your sights too low. You can only not fail if you aim too low. So worry, be very afraid when you do not fail.

Finally, I speak to you on this commencement in the faith that it is one of many beginnings in your lives. You have had a great education and a bright future of promise and responsibility awaits you. But you must always remember that education doesn't take place only in stuffy classrooms and musty libraries, it happens all the time and everywhere and you can and will learn not just from your teachers and professors.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

Thank you for listening to me. Congratulations on your accomplishment.  

Investing in Smallholder Farmers Key to Economic Growth

A report commissioned by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and released on June 4, 2013 argues that investing in smallholder farmers provides the best opportunity to produce sufficient food while lifting billions out of poverty.

The Report, “Smallholder farmers, food security and the environment”, opens with a candid appraisal of Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The report notes that the gains of the Green Revolution have been associated with environmental externalities, which have undermined the natural resource base and threaten to reverse the gains in agricultural productivity. The report concludes that with targeted support, smallholder farmers can transform the rural landscape and unleash a new and sustainable agricultural revolution.

Decades of underinvestment in research, extension, rural infrastructure, financial services, weather and climate information, and health services have marginalized and left smallholder farmers in developing countries behind. A year ago in this column, I shared the story of feisty grandmother. In the middle of the main cropping season, Ann’s maize crop was pale yellow and spindly, barely chest height and choking in a thicket of weeds. Beneath my feet, the Earth’s fragile skin was pale, evidence of decades of nutrient mining and hemorrhaging of vital soil minerals. Ann’s 14 grandchildren are malnourished and chronically hungry.

For Ann and 1.4 billion farmers like her who depend on the land for their livelihood;, nutrition, health, employment, income, wealth creation opportunities as well as a safety net, decline in agricultural productivity creates a vicious poverty trap, leading to a self-perpetrating loop of resource degradation and poverty. In my view, Africa’s liberation from the yoke of chronic hunger, malnutrition and poverty is inextricable bound with the productivity and profitability of hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers. Jeffery Sachs, renowned of economist and leader in sustainable development, has argued that productivity of smallholder farmers is a critical pathway out of poverty through nutritional security stable income and wealth accumulation.

The report delivers three key messages, which have significant economic and development policy implications on the future of smallholder farmers, food security and environmental sustainability. The first message makes the point that smallholder farmers manage about 500 million small farms and produce 80% of the food consumed in the developing world but they are largely neglected. In many parts of the developing world, especially in sub Saharan Africa, public policies do not support smallholder farmers through instruments like input credit, secure property rights, extension services, infrastructure and markets.

The second message recognizes that the productivity of smallholder farms depends on vital services; water, fertile soils, pollination, pest control, which are provided by well functioning ecosystems. Poverty, land degradation and a lack of tools for responding to the impacts of climate change often lead farmers to adopt bad land use and land management practices, which undermine the ecosystem service upon which agriculture depends. This message underscores the ecological foundation of food security.

The third message makes the point that while the need to produce more food is imperative, current agricultural practices are undermining the ecological foundation of agriculture and therefore threatens the global food system. Sustainable agricultural intensification in smallholder farming systems could be the answer to enhanced food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.

According to Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, we have a choice to continue to either marginalize smallholder farmers or recognize them as catalysts for a transformation of global food supply and stewardship of the ecological services that undergird agriculture. As the economic sector that employs the highest proportion of the rural population, agriculture must be at the heart of global economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.

More importantly, the report cites key studies, which show a positive relationship between agriculture and poverty reduction. For instance, one study has shown that for every 10% increase in farm yields, there was a 7% reduction in poverty in Africa. In contrast, growth in manufacturing and services has not shown comparable impact on poverty. Similarly, previous studies have found that a 1% increase in agricultural per GDP reduced the poverty gap five times more than 1% increase in GDP per capita in the manufacturing and service sectors, especially among the poorest.

Agriculture now accounts for just 25% of Kenya’s GDP, down from 40% in the first decade after independence. Do you sometimes wonder why despite significant GDP growth the proportion of Kenyans living below the poverty line remains stubbornly high? 

Principles for a global development agenda beyond 2015

We live in an epoch characterized as the Anthropocene in, which the impact of our species on the planet is analogous to the forces of nature such earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In our quest for food, fodder, fibre and energy we have fouled the atmosphere, warmed our planet, degraded our soils, polluted our water systems, cleared forests and savannas and exterminated animals and fishes. 

We have conquered space. With airplanes we have put time and distance in chains. Today you have more computing power in your smartphone than the Apollo Guidance Computer, which provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidance, navigation and control of Apollo 11. But tonight hundreds of millions are hungry and malnourished. Millions will die of preventable diseases. Islands of odious wealth in our society are engulfed in a sea unconscionable poverty. In many societies women and ethnic minorities are staggered by the winds of discrimination. For many, government delivers not hope and security but despondency and tyranny. For migrants, cities deliver squalor and peril.

On May 30, 2013 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched the report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 development agenda. The report provides a framework for a new global partnership to end poverty and transform economies through sustainable development.

The 27-member Panel led by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and British Prime Minister David Cameron proposes 12 goals and 54 targets. I find this exhausting and unremarkable. What puzzles me is that like in the current MDGs, poverty eradication endures a priority goal. I am puzzled because poverty is a symptom, often of deep structural dysfunction, which cannot be tackled in isolation. However, we owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women who made their voices heard in face-to-face meetings with the Panel.

It is especially laudable that the Panel has defined five big, transformative shifts for a Post 2015 development agenda. These the five big transformative shifts inhere in the common vision outlined by world leaders at the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012. To specify the 12 goals and 54 targets is in my view an overreach. I suggest that the UN work with governments and citizens to commit to the five transformative shifts, which are essentially principles for a new global partnership for sustainable development post 2015.

Here are the five principles, which I believe should drive the post 2015 development agenda, with government and communities setting their own goals and defining measureable, achievable and time bound targets.

Leave no one behind: This principle imagines a more equitable and inclusive society and commits governments to ensure a level playing field in the provision of basic services such as education, health, access to finance as well as reaching out to excluded groups and building resilience through social protection.

Putting sustainable development at the core: The idea here is that government, business and private citizens must transform the way we use the earth’s resources to produce food and the creature comforts we relish. A critical plank of this principle is valuing and accounting for natural capital and shifting our economies to a green growth pathway.

Transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth: This is not even remotely implied in the current MDGs. At the core of this principle is the audacious idea that growth must be sustainable, inclusive and equitable. An essential ingredient for economic transformation is providing high quality education and building the skills of the youth. This is a pre-requisite for creating opportunities for decent jobs and secure livelihoods, which, is key to reducing poverty and social inequality.

Building open and effective, open and accountable institutions: At the heart of this is the notion that governments everywhere must the transparent, inclusive, accountable and responsive to the needs of their citizens. This principle underscores the fact that good governance and strong public institutions, which uphold peace and the rule of law are critical to setting a stable socio-economic context for sustainable development.

Forge a new global partnership: The idea of this new vision for global partnership is to engage government, international organizations, business, civil society, scientist and academics, foundations and social impact investors in a framework of action, beyond aid, to achieve sustainable development. This partnership must provide a better way to link knowledge, technology, finances as well policy and institutional capacity.

Imagine what the world would look like if all of us committed to these principles.