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?
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