Target 4 – 100% increase in smallholder productivity and income
The consultation on Dutch food security policy was closed on September 15, 2014. The consultation was originally opened by the Food & Business Knowledge Platform on July 01, 2014. The purpose of the consultation was to ensure that the newest topics and debates on food security are included in the food security policy paper, which the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economic Affairs will send to the Dutch Parliament at the end of this year.
On September 30, 2014, the F&BKP has published its final report (PDF), which has been sent to both ministries. All contributions posted during the consultation remain available online and can be downloaded in a document (PDF) with an easy search tool.
Please find below all comments received concerning Target 4: How can the Netherlands most effectively contribute to achieving the target 100% increase in smallholder productivity and income? We thank all contributors for their participation and inspirational input.
Questions which have been addressed in the contributions are:
- What do you consider the biggest challenges in achieving a 100% increase in smallholder productivity and income?
- What are the most effective intervention strategies to address these global challenges? Which actors need to play a role to make this happen?
- How does that relate to the Netherlands’ strengths and to actors from government, the business community, knowledge institutes and civil society?
- What implications would this have for the policy choices of the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economic Affairs?
Target 4 – 100% increase in smallholder productivity and income
Reducing rural poverty and improving wellbeing through encouraging decent work, and increasing smallholders’ income; empowering women, small farmers, fishers, pastoralists, young people, farmer organizations, indigenous people and their communities; supporting agricultural research and innovation; improving land tenure, access to assets and to natural resources, making sure that all investments in agriculture and value chains are responsible and accountable; developing multidimensional indicators for people’s resilience and wellbeing.
Source: Zero Hunger Challenge
In order to understand how small and large farming can contribute to achieving a sustainable global food system, we should look at their specific features. It is not only scale but also different uses of labour and other inputs, and access to technologies, markets and information that characterise the players in agriculture. Betting on one model only and adopting a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to be appropriate, given the heterogeneity of institutions, agricultural practices, as well as farming and demographic conditions across developing countries. Oxfam Novib recommends an approach encompassing low external input (LEI) small scale and large scale farming, while avoiding high external input (HEI) methods, advancing environmental safeguards, and promoting the rights of women, smallholders and agricultural workers.
Already 500 million smallholders produce 80% of the food consumed in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Supporting smallholder farmers provides the greatest impact in terms of income creation and food security, in particular when associated with LEI agriculture methods. Oxfam Novib recommends to:
• Support subsistence (family) farmers to cope with risks and vulnerability and to move to higher-risk/higher-return activities. Social safety nets must be guaranteed for those affected by climatic and market shocks and those who cannot engage consistently in the economy.
• Target female (subsistence) farmers. If women were provided with the same level of access to resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20–30%, in turn reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17%. In all plans, policies, programs gender analysis should be done and actions should be directed towards men and women specifically.
• Promote rights and opportunities of smallholder investor farmers, by investing in their access to credits, markets, knowledge, seeds, and other inputs. It is particularly important to increase their access to local and regional markets, where these producers are competitive. It is also important to promote smallholder’s agency, for instance by supporting them to organise themselves (for instance in co-operatives) and have their voice heard in public or private sector decision making affecting them.
In countries where labour supply constrains smallholder expansion, LEI large-scale industrial farming can be a successful option to promote food security (through a reduction in prices, thanks to increased productivity) and reduce poverty (through the creation of employment). However, evidence so far suggests that unless strong regulation is in place to secure property rights, labour rights, ensure land acquisition respects land rights, and ensure transparent and participatory negotiations, adverse social and environmental effects outweigh the benefits for agricultural workers and small farmers.
The Dutch government is steering its investments in agriculture in developing countries increasingly through the top-sectors and public private partnerships. Not only is it important that the government strengthens its focus on smallholders, it is also important that the government works with industry and CSOs to ensure that (public-)private investments promote the productivity, prosperity (including by ensuring fair prices and decent wages), agency, and resilience of smallholders and agricultural workers.
The developing countries in the ‘60s and ‘70s invested in producing commodities for export, at the behest of the international institutions. But they gradually stopped investing in the work of small farmers who were trying to feed the local communities with millet, sorghum, and sweet potato. These small farmers were not a source of public revenue for the state since they were making so little money that they could not be taxed. Consequently they had no voice in the political system. So the least developed countries are now caught in a vicious circle. They have imported more and more of the food that they consumed and as a result they were less and less able to invest in local production. The small farmers migrated in ever greater numbers to the cities, where they are fed on large amounts of heavily subsidised foods that we in the OECD countries are producing. 70% of the poor live in the rural areas, where many people survive on subsistence agriculture, and try to get a meagre income from whatever work they can find.
1. Governments in the South should be encouraged to (re)invest in agro-ecological local production, redevelop local food, and reduce their dependency on international markets.
2. At the same time governments in the North must move away from the export-led agriculture that is making it difficult for governments in the South to make this transition.
This double transformation will be difficult to achieve because of technical, economic, cultural and above all political obstacles (see target 1)
Of course financial resources are needed for measure 1. Governments of rich countries could pay up, but better labour and competition laws and regulations to curb the greed of big corporations might be more effective (and cheaper for governments).
Vandana Shiva pointed out at he ‘Voedsel anders’ conference: ‘20 companies control our vertically integrated food system (5 controlling seed, e.g. Monsanto, 5 controlling the grain trade, e.g. Cargill, 5 processors, e.g. Nestlé, 5 retailers, e.g. Walmart). They bring 1% of the consumer dollar, or euro, or rupee tot the farmer. What we need is a 50% model. 50% should go the farmer and the local economy. Then 50% of the people will be on the land, doing creative work with the soil, with the food.’
All the resources available should go into the democratisation of the food system from the local level upwards, and into the development of agro-ecological agriculture; see also target 2. And all political efforts should go into changing trade regulations and patent laws (see also http://www.alternativetrademandate.org.)
Human rights (including the right to food), women’s rights, labour, environment and climate should have precedence over trade and investment regimes.
The sustainable markets and supply chains are commodity focused. The smallholders are mostly doing subsistence agriculture (try to everything that they can produce). Although, the smallholder farmers are the driving force for food and nutrition security for the global population, because of subsistence agriculture their productivity is very poor which resets their poor economic and food security status.
The smallholders, irrespective of their production system, do not know about the potentials of the standard farming also don’t have access to sustainable markets for selling of their products. A big challenge is changing their mindset to enter into a settled chain of custody for the selling of their farm produces.
Smallholders often have limited access to markets for both inputs and outputs, and this has a significant effect on their productivity. They have to pay the higher transaction cost due to limited access to logistics and transportation networks which lower profit margins, and lead many smallholders to pursue more subsistence-oriented production practices. Many smallholders are excluded from financial services and are unable to secure much-needed working capital, which ranges from land, farm management, technologies and high-yielding seeds, and fertilizer.
Most smallholders use simple technologies and cultivation practices are for own consumption with little surplus for the local market. The smallholders also need immediate cash from selling of their produces to pay back the credits from the local money lenders and/or the financial institutes as well as to buy livelihoods needs. Some of the smallholders also took the advance money from the supply chain actors with the condition of selling their produce at a fixed price, which lower the profit margin. The medium and large scale commercial farmers are using modem inputs and having access to domestic and global input and output marketing chains. They are also vertically integrated with the local, national and international markets and agro-processing enterprises.
Towards improving the smallholder productivity, they need to adopt enterprise agriculture. To make this transition, the smallholders need to be supported by technological adoption and logistics for wider market integration. This requires interventions for supply chain efficiency to integrate the smallholder with the large scale commercial farmers and market linkages with local and national market intermediaries as well as agro processing enterprises. A public-private institutional arrangement is also needed so that the smallholders get easy access to input and output markets.
Towards this end, the 1st step would be the development of commodity based farmer organizations and improving smallholders’ business orientation and farm management skills. Secondly, the smallholders need support for service delivery to increase farm level productivity by encouraging adoption of innovative commodity and ecosystem based farming technologies. Thirdly, smallholders need to be supported by a business plan that will develop the understanding of the farmers on the benefits of entering into a sustain chain of custody for marketing of the farm produces. Fourthly, public-private and CSO coordination is needed for the vertical and horizontal market integration to meet safety, quality, and quantity standards.
In addition, the followings need to be taken into consideration for the smallholder productivity:
• Access to innovative financial services;
• Flexible arrangement for land leasing;
• Investment in logistics support in transport, communication, energy and cool chain infrastructure;
• Improve enabling business environment through introducing widely accepted code of conducts and improve legal framework for crop protection.
INTRODUCTION
Because you propose that a lively discussion between contributors will be established, I want first want to make some quotes of other contributors to this discussion (below).
I will first mention some quotes with which I fully agree. Then I will give my own analysis and alternative.
QUOTES:
JAMA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)):
‘Improving smallholder yields and resilience From my personal perspective the Netherlands policy for food & nutrition security would include the following areas:
1. Improving smallholder yields of staple food crops. Without this, it is hard to achieve food and nutrition security. This would require improving the resource base, particularly soil fertility that has been neglected for long. This requires improving access to inputs (seeds and fertilizers), extension and advisory services, and output markets. This is the major thrust of AGRA’s work. (…)
3. Enhancing resiliency to climate change and variability.
HIRSCH (BothENDS):
‘”Not the right question: it is not about production, but about distribution of food”
The world produces enough calories to meet the projected 9 billion in 2050. And in addition, 70% of the food is being produced by small-scale farmers. Therefore, it is not about production, it is about distribution of food between people, it is about the quality of food being produced and consumed (maize or a diverse diet), about the purpose of the food: energy, fodder for animals and it is a matter of waste.
The question should be: how can the Netherlands contribute to small-scale farmers worldwide to come to sustainable food production? We see 5 options for transition:
• Make a comparative analysis of the inputs (land, land tenure, chemicals, animal antibiotics, biological pest control, fossil fuel based fertilizers, fodder, animal manure, labour, mechanisation, agrobiodiversity, transportation) of diversified farming systems and monocultures.
• Support new indicators for measuring agricultural practices (like nutritional value per square meter, input-output ratio including externalities and offsite benefits, instead of volume per hectare).
• Intensify the support for responsible governance for tenure of land and forests.
• Support participatory inclusive knowledge and practice development for sustainable land use and up-scaling of sustainable practices.
• Support an enabling environment for removal of barriers to local and regional markets.
VAN DIJK (Bop Innovation Center):
‘”We look at smallholder productivity from a systemic, value chain driven approach” (…) smallholders work towards markets, where the incentives for productivity increases can be materialized. (…)
In BoP Inc’s opinion one of the most underestimated themes when it comes to smallholder productivity. Dutch companies are market leaders in many agricultural technology sectors. However, their product propositions are focused on large scale agriculture. They do not (yet) see smallholder farmers as an interesting business cases. (…)
Many agricultural development projects focus on production for export markets. Even though this can fetch a price premium on the market, this is not realistic for many smallholder farmers.
KAY (Transnational Institute):
‘It is clear that investing in food security means investing in smallholders: according to IFAD (2011), there are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in the developing world, supporting almost 2 billion people who depend on them for their livelihood, and these small farms produce about 80 per cent of the food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet despite their enormous contribution to world food security, smallholders also belong to the most poor and vulnerable and face a number of critical investment constraints that subject them to a high level of precarity and risk. These include amongst many others limited access to land and other natural resources (especially water) often due to highly unequal land distribution patterns and tenure regimes; unfavourable market conditions and lack of access to appropriate markets, especially financial markets; marginalisation in public policy, agricultural research, and investment decision making processes; and lack of recognition or violations of their basic rights.
It is vital that Dutch food security policy address some of these constraints in order to realize the full potential of smallholder agriculture.
An important recommendation for Dutch policy to consider is that offered by the High Level Panel of Experts of the UN Committee on World Food Security. In their 2013 report ‘Investing in Smallholder Agriculture for Food Security’, they recommend developing National Smallholder Investment Strategies (…).
It is time to put smallholder agriculture back at the heart of public policy and public investment plans. This can be done through:
• Using public policy tools to open up new markets to small-scale food producers and strengthening local and regional food systems
• Setting a progressive agenda in agricultural research
• Facilitating lending to smallholders through reforming agricultural development banks
• Providing essential rural social service and infrastructure
• Buffering against food produce shocks through the maintenance of public stocks
• Building resilience through social protection schemes
• Enacting (re)distributive land reform,
Public-private partnerships can also have a role to play but here also there is an important role for the state to play in setting in place a proper regulatory regime and supporting the voice of farmers’ organisations so that the power imbalances between different actors are not abused. Such partnerships should also place the accent on development local, regional, and national markets first and foremost.
EENHOORN (World Connectors):
‘Realize that fair trade sometimes means protection
In order to create a dynamic farming society it is necessary to have stable output price relations, for which (temporarily) protection from cheap imports is required and taxation on agricultural products is minimized. It is recommended that governments that want to stimulate smallholder productivity take this into account. Governments in the North and in the South and their institutions (EU, AU, OECD, WTO) should be more aware of the fact that the development of markets that also work for the poor (smallholders) are essential for the economic development of developing nations that are dependent on agriculture to feed and employ the urban and rural poor.’
MY OWN CONTRIBUTION:
Not only to guarantee food security but also to guarantee a sustainable development in other economic sectors it is essential that small holders in developing countries are stimulated to produce the food for local and national markets. All successful economies (for example EU, Japan, China, South Korea) first stimulated agriculture by huge investments, guaranteeing prices to farmers and protecting agriculture with import taxes.
Starting with a strong agricultural sector, later on industrial development was stimulated, again by first protecting this with import barriers.
Many other developing countries didn’t get that chance, firstly by imposing them with structural adjustment programs, later on by WTO agreements and/or other Free Trade Agreements like Economic Partnership Agreements. They were stimulated to export tropical products and import cheap subsidised food. This export led model lead to destruction of family farming. More and more farmers stopped and migrated to the cities and food security was negatively affected as shown during the food crisis in 2008 and 2011. This model looked favourable for citizens in cities because they got cheap imported food for decades, but because of many farmers moving to the cities, wages and labour conditions were very low.
In 2008 suddenly also food prices increased, and showed the complete failure of this model. Since then organisations like the World Bank started stimulating agriculture again, but still nothing is done to reverse this free trade agreements, and to make things worse export led agriculture and land grabbing are going full speed ahead.
With climate change leading to increasing disasters for food production especially in developing countries and with population rising sometimes two or three times, it’s impossible to go one with this neoliberal agenda.
So, comparable to the EU, developing countries – or regional blocks – need to get the chance to get as self-sufficient as possible in basic needs like food, as soon as possible. See also http://www.alternativetrademandate.org (my contribution at target 3).
A proposal for this:
– Stop imposing free trade agreements on these countries and repair all damage done by Structural Adjustment Programs, by this way small holders will get fair and remunerative prices for the food they produce.
– All countries are able to raise their import taxes to make this possible, supply management systems are necessary to prevent unstable prices and dumping;
– International fair trade agreements, like commodity agreements for tropical products (to balance supply and demand) and quota systems for products in which western countries and developing countries are getting more self-sufficient. For example a quota system for soy and palm oil which the EU imports. These quotas are gradually decreased, while the EU is increasing its own vegetable protein and oil production.
The same for developing countries: an import quota system for imported rice, grain, dairy and meat which is gradually decreased while they are getting more self-sufficient by food produced by their own farmers.
This will lead to a stimulation of incomes of farmers, enhanced food security, and many more jobs in processing and informal trade of these products.
The challenge of food and nutrition security is a multi-faceted topic and we should not have the pretention to resolve food security challenges with blueprint programmes. Integral development is needed which implies that we should support countries in their capacity to develop, taking into account the characteristics of each country and each target group. This principle is also needed at the level of the seed sector: strengthen the capacity of the local sector and take into account differences in context and diversity within the sector.
The seed sector plays an important role to increase productivity and make it more sustainable both through breeding (e.g. drought tolerance; disease resistance) as well improved seed quality, and reduce poverty (seed/planting materials production for export market with high labour input). The role of plant breeders is to look for seeds which contribute to these goals and fit the local situation. Crucial is to acknowledge the diversity of the seed sector and the added value of each segment of the system: seed production by farmers, semi-commercial farmer groups, small commercial seed companies, and multinational companies, and emergency seed systems.
To improve the use and multiplication of seed the focus may also be on strengthening extension services and/or cooperatives and as such reach smallholders which are not the primary target of commercial companies.
The Netherlands has much to offer to the development of the seed sector in emerging economies and developing countries. Integral programmes (ISSD) look at the sector as a whole: strengthen bottom-up seed production, support commercial sector without frustration of local initiatives, and improve government policies and their implementation (e.g. breeders rights, seed legislation (variety registration and seed quality control). The business sector can play a role but such programmes need public support since ‘Return on Investment’ is not to be expected on the short term. Cooperation with Dutch private sector is crucial and growing.
Wageningen/KIT and the seed quality control agencies NAK/Naktuinbouw have some relevant capacity for advising at national policy level and for supporting local/informal seed systems. The Dutch private sector is strong in mapping opportunities and developing strategies where to produce seeds, which seeds, etc. A challenge for the diverse Dutch sector (300 SME’s) is to approach emerging economies and developing countries in a more structural and systemised way to locate and address the opportunities. Topsector TU / TKI has a role to play.
Urbanisation will increase local horticulture and as such boost the seed sector. Dutch policy focussing on developing horticulture around cities and linking to the integral seed programmes would lead to synergy.
These joint efforts of development policy and Topsector policy (Aid and Trade) should be supported by e.g. clear information for private sector on which instruments are available to support initiatives in developing countries, by linking CGIAR-budget to Dutch knowledge institutes and private sector and by supporting knowledge and capacity development.
More than 75 percent of the world’s poor are farmers. Majority are subsistence farmers who work so hard but barely even harvest enough to feed their families and later qualify to improve their income. A 97 year old subsistence farmer, who has spent most of his years trying to escape poverty and hunger, recently told us (VAI )in our farmers’ voice serie visits:
“Many governemnts and partners spend much more time and resources planning to transform us (subsistence farmers), than you spend on activities that can directly transform us”
“New seed varieties have been discovered but we do not get them! Community roads have been opened but we are unreached, national budgets have increased but our income has not changed. why?? , why??, why ??”
“You spend much more money travelling to workshops and seminars to talk about how we are hungry than you spend travelling to talk to us and talking to us to end humger”
He concluded our interaction with him with powerful observation “ it would be interesting for my father who died 75 years ago at the birth of new phase of global cooperation and the independence movement and later independence for us and others, to find his 97 year old son still a subsistence farmer and hungry”. Like the old man observed policies have changed , programmes have changed, governments have changed but majority and majority of subsistence farmers are yet to change.
Planning and actions Gaps
Talking about issues of family farming/Small holder farming, a 70 year old woman in rural Uganda recently told a visiting planning team “we are tired of you all! You all come and ask us same good questions every financial year but we never see you again until the next planning phase. Please to day I am busy with my work. Goooo!” She emphasized. This is the level of despondency and discontentment among the poor farmers in rural Africa. What is the primary cause? If you ask all development actors from Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to None-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to local governments, central governments and development partners/donors you notice each one has a plan on how to get the funds, spend the funds, and account for them and in most cases account to the source of funds not to the end user of the funds. Auditors will prepare good reports for the source of funds and project managers’ prepare winning full color Project Annual Reports with good pictures sometimes with photos of people that have not consented for their publication!! Donors have their country strategies, governments with their development plans, NGOs with their strategic plans all of them targeting to change households but their main target (farmer) is never helped to have a plan! For instance in Uganda, in the current planning cycle planning takes place at national (National Development Plan), district (District Development Plan), Sub County (Sub County Development Plan), and minimally at parish (Parish Development Plan). Each of these level plans are integrated and linked and have intrinsic accountability requirements and all aspiring to help families transform. But the household they are planning for has none!! In a town hall discussion regarding planning and service delivery for agriculture, one woman noted we do not need a plan like theirs (governments and NGOs) and added: “all we need is one to help me to plan as follows? What is the best enterprise to help me increase income? What is the best technology? Who can give me the technology? What is the source of funding for their (governments and NGOs) projects? How much is planned for my community? Where can I find them? If they don’t deliver whom should I tell? What should community do in case all is not well with projects?” It is clear that inspite of the emphasis for participatory planning and inclusion of citizens in planning processes, formal planning ends in government structures and partner meetings. No one helps the poor farmer to organize itself, have plan of action know its entitlements from government and other actors in the development process. It is against this background that we propose the Household Agriculture Transformation Plans (HATPs) is proposed. HATPs that we define as a Household plan of action to transform its household enterprise through implementation of agreed household- strategic actions and active demand for entitlements.
HATPs projected benefits
• It helps to domesticate international, national and local government policies at household level; Help households to realize and map opportunities and demand for their entitlements and feedback;
• Inspires households to realise development opportunities and exploit them; Improve on service delivery from government to households; Helps household to explore its unexploited potential for development;
• Helps families develop ambition, strategy and actions for development.
• It Improves on agricultural extension service delivery from government to households
• HATPs takes extension services to the household and links the household directly to the market
• HATPs is a model that builds strong civic engagement and accountability attitudes in people
Small producers are back into the spotlight, as:
These huge expectations come at a time of rapid changes in rural areas ushered in by globalization, urbanization and modernization. And the expectations continue to grow, with modern value chains, certified products, carbon markets, and payments for ecosystem services, all expected to empower the poor in the markets.
Efforts to lift small producers out of poverty often follow a similar pattern, they focus on one value chain and try to connect farmers with new markets. In recent years, donors and the development community at large have embraced the idea that public private partnerships and innovative business models can deliver profits to poor producers. Their expectation is that through inclusion in markets and value chains, small-scale producers can survive and prosper in the face of major changes in agriculture and food markets. Although there have been notable successes in connecting smallholders to export markets, many of these so-called market-based initiatives are relatively small, unable to scale-up or sustain once external support is withdrawn.
Informal food markets still predominate across most of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Flexible informal channels link poor producers with poor consumers. Informal markets are growing and modern value chains are the exception. Dynamic local, national and regional markets are giving farmers increasing options beyond global supply chains. Growing demand for food — including the growth of urban markets, south-south trade, and middle-class consumer groups demanding more quality and safety — fuels increasing competition for supply. The decentralization of many developing-world governments has also directed more resources towards creating and strengthening local markets. The benefits that draw farmers to the informal economy are offset by downsides of poor food safety and traceability, corruption and criminality, poor environmental performance and inequity.
All this has reinforced one of the most basic strategies of the rural poor: multifaceted livelihoods that use diversity of economic activities to hedge risks and make the most of scarce land, cash and other resources.
We are starting to become more conscious of the links between decent job creation, the informal sector, political stability and economic democracy, without which sustainable development is at risk. There is great opportunity to support innovative agri-food policy development. Inclusive formalization could be accompanied, for instance, by investments in market infrastructure, risk insurance, market reforms to bust cartels and fight corruption, and appropriate measures to support family farms, such as government procurement programmes. In the private sector, efforts towards greater inclusiveness have helped many farmers raise their incomes, but they should also look at more traditional instruments of corporate responsibility such as decent labor standards, which may have more impact among the poorest rural households.
Include Sustainability on farm level in food security programs by paying attention to the impact of climate change and adaptation and mitigation strategies. Pay attention to environmental aspects of how food is produced; invest in knowledge on farm level and value addition of the farmers produce.
The need for that became clear after a few years of success of a program focusing on increasing productivity of small holders. The program resulted in higher yields and more income. However, due to droughts the level of productivity and income dropped. In Uganda for example knowledge about climate change is incorporated in some Dutch funded programmes, which turns out to be useful. This should be common policy and integrated in such programmes elsewhere.
Invest in governance & leadership. At farm level but also SMEs lack knowledge on how to respond to developments and trends in food security or agricultural policy. Food security policies should support farmers and entrepreneurs to develop knowledge and take responsibility to discuss developments and policy.
There is a real risk focusing too much on productivity rather than ensuring access to affordable nutritious food and reducing wastes.
However, increasing food production is important for many smallholders and especially in places where there is insufficient food available locally. Smallholders, particularly women produce up to 80% of local basic foodstuffs (FAO). Unlike often thought, there is increasing evidence that small farms are often as productive as large farms and have particular high potential under appropriate conditions to produce more in a sustainable and inclusive manner (e.g. Larson 2012, as also quoted by African Progress Panel).
Policies should promote improved enabling environment for (women) smallholders – e.g. ensuring level playing field with larger farms, but also by investing in appropriate post-harvest practices and infrastructures – as well as directly support smallholders. Strong reports with strong recommendations like IAASTD (2008) (why sidelined?) , as well as more recently from CFS HLPE and UNCTAD, provide an important base for policy change and should be taken into account.
We also recommend having a stronger rights-based approach to food security, building on the right to food (including recommendations of former UNSR Right to Food, De Schutter) and women’s equal rights. Treating food as a human right brings coherence and accountability. It helps to close the gaps by putting food security of all citizens at the top of the decision-making hierarchy, and making these decision-making processes participatory and accountable. We would like to re-emphasize that priority is to invest in empowerment of smallholder farmers, particular women smallholders, and to strengthen and secure their access to and control over natural resources, in particular land and water.
Note that it is a misunderstanding that advocating for smallholder support (as opposed to focusing on large-scale investments) equals advocating for the perpetuation of marginal smallholder farming. We do feel however that where food security policies and strategies have not been successful to date they were not people- and particularly women-centered, which would be key for promoting rural and livelihood development. Marginal smallholders have to be supported to become productive smallholders relying on improved and more sustainable integrated food (& income) systems and subsequently if non-farming income opportunities arise part of them gradually may move out of farming and others may scale up sustainable farming practices.
Dutch policy implications include increasing more direct support to smallholders (e.g. with civil society) and supporting governments (e.g. as part of CAADP) to this more explicitly, whilst ensuring these efforts are not undermined by other policies and initiatives that might displace or compete with smallholders interest. This includes a stronger emphasis on the public window of Worldbank’s GAFSP and making sure that the private window and other private sector finance take smallholder’s interests as a starting point and includes them directly (e.g. by reducing the high funding thresholds, working with farmer groups, etc.). We also refer to our recommendations for increasing investment in women smallholders shared earlier this year, including references to embassy programmes, Topsectoren etc.
Additional requirements:
• Guaranteeing a level playing field and reducing negative impacts of large scale agri-business investments and production of non-food agriculture products
• Ensure smallholders prioritise food for their households, communities, local and national markets instead of cash crops for external or export markets. They may integrate cash corps, ideally also for processing by national industries, once food security and nutrition requirements are met. When production of cash crops pays off much better governments may have to intervene and take policy measures to guarantee sufficient food is being produced locally and nationally.
• Rehabilitate, step up and innovate public demand-driven support for climate resilient sustainable agriculture and agroecology as well as innovative post-harvest practices, processing off and adding value to food and agribusiness development, including entrepreneurial and business negotiation skills.
• Support to water harvesting and (small-scale) irrigation, introduction of drought resistant crops, agro-forestry and food trees, fish farming, small livestock within integrated farming and livelihood systems. This shall both raise the income but more importantly reduces the risks to become food and income insecure.
• Embark on efficient modalities for facilitating the establishment and strengthening of smallholder farmers and other producer association or autonomous cooperatives (single or multiple purpose)
• Invest in local seed banks and seed and food sovereignty
• Move into non-farming income generating activities and alternative decent work if opportunities arise but still maintain a kitchen garden or small farm if possible.
• Peri-urban and urban farming provides opportunities even for city dwellers
• In order to promote inclusive local economic development it is pertinent to invest rural infrastructure and rural growth centers. The latter for hosting local markets , agri-industries and a diversity of business and socials services
See also our input for target 1 and other recommendations for investing in smallholders in the following ActionAid (and joint) publications: What works for women, Great Land Heist, From Marginalisation to Empowerment’ and experiences with CRSA.
There are three main trends in food demand. First, global demand is expected to increase by up to 70% by 2050, requiring annual investments ranging from US$80-160 billion per year according to FAO. Second, the rising middle class in emerging markets creates larger domestic markets and a shift in dietary preference towards higher value and nutrition foods such as oilseeds and feeds, meat/dairy/fish, and fruits and vegetables. Larger international corporates are increasing their local procurement and sales of food in emerging markets. Third, the need to ensure that future growth of food comes from sustainable sourcing brings demands for standards and traceability of foods produced.
For agribusiness and food companies, whether global, regional or local, these trends increase their need to secure supplies to meet current and future business growth and provide higher visibility along their whole value chain. These agribusinesses are also increasingly focusing on small holder farmers that are part of their value chain. Strengthening value chains by integrating small holder farmers is becoming an imperative to both source more food to feed growing populations and ensure that the increased production comes from sustainable sources.
Small holder farmers, particular in poorer countries, often have very low yields compared to middle and higher income countries. For example, for most cereals, the yields of small holder farmers in many parts of Africa are less than a third of the yields for the same crops in middle and higher income countries. Lack of know-how, limited availability of quality inputs, and poor access to finance to invest in better production technologies keep small holders farmers from increasing their yields. The low yields and weak access to markets thus remain as the main contributors to low incomes.
The trend to better integrate small holder farmers into value chains can bring substantial benefits and become a win-win for all participants along these value chains. Small holder farmers along better organized value chains have better access to quality inputs, technical advice, funding and secure markets to sell their produce. They often also have access to risk management instruments like crop insurance and fixed price contracts that can reduce uncertainty to systemic risks and thus encourage them to invest more. The need to strengthen linkages between value chain participants-from lead food and agribusiness companies all the way to small holder farmers-shifts the relationship between participants from opportunistic transactions to forming longer-term relations that can transform the business. Anecdotal evidence from a number of field projects has shown small holder farmers benefiting from stronger linkages in value chains in terms of ultimately having better yields and better prices and thus better incomes overall.
The benefits accruing to small holder farmers can be significantly higher when these farmers are members of well-organized producer organizations or groups of farmers. Producer organizations can improve the bargaining power of farmers in selling their crops and purchasing inputs, and significantly lower costs in terms of providing them with services like technical assistance and financial services. Thus producer organizations offer viable aggregation models for small holder farmers. The key here is to have well organized and viable producer organizations. Capacity building on financial, operational, managerial, marketing and sustainability issues is very important here, as are systems to identify good organizations that can become critical anchors within value chains.
Lessons learned from IFC projects in value chain finance include:
• Small holder farmers are very heterogeneous requiring segmentation to understand the context where they operate, the risks they face, their linkages to markets, and their financial and non-financial needs.
• It is important to identify, align incentives and link various stakeholders such as lead buying firms, farmers/producer organizations and financial institutions along the value chain.
• Financing farmers becomes more attractive when it is linked with improvements in production (yields, quality) through high quality inputs and technical advice (agricultural extension), improved access to markets, and training in financial and managerial capabilities.
My contribution is jointly authored with Heather Miller, Operations Officer at IFC
As IICD, we use our expertise to consolidate capacity of Farmer Organizations (and via them smallholder farmers), as well as other Value Chain actors, to mainstream ICT solutions. Our almost 20 years of experience in introducing ICTs for agriculture in development context shows that the use of the range of emerging ICT solutions positively affects inclusion – and therefore profitability and income – of smallholders, providing that it is supported by thorough capacity building of all the stakeholders and applied with the business logic of the Value Chain.
The use of ICTs improves the performance and profitability of agricultural activities, allows for mitigation of the inherent risks, and provides access to information and services essential for smallholder farmers and their organizations to link to vertically integrated Value Chains.
While substantial progress has been made in understanding value of ICTs and making ICTs available and accessible, challenges remain. As an input, I’d like to share some key reflections and lessons learned by IICD:
• Integrated organizational capacity building
The ability of local organizations to appropriate relevant ICT tools and integrate them in their service delivery is essential. Such institutional development is only achieved when focus is on social innovation – business transformation supported by technology, and not on technology itself. Though the types of use of ICTs in agriculture keep evolving, foundational capacity is not shaped by the new technologies themselves.
From our experience, we strongly believe in the diversity of capacity building activities required for effective and sustainable ICT use over time, especially at the organizational level.
Supported programs shall include strong capacity building components which understand capacity building in broader terms. Not only as training interventions, but also coaching and mentoring, knowledge sharing, relationship building and networking with local technical providers, in-depth locally-led analysis of the local information and communication needs and mapping of existing information and communication flows, etc. It’s essential to realize and support that capacity to design, develop, implement and maintain ICT solutions requires thorough long-term guidance and support through the business transformation processes that take place when ICT tools are adopted for agricultural purposes.
• Trust – role of producer organisations
Our experience shows that we need to keep emphasizing the relevance and importance of rural producer organisations trusted by the farmers in integrating the use of ICTs in agricultural activities. Social dynamics within benefitting communities often mean that trust depends on the social capital of the party providing the information. Farmers indicate that they feel more at ease when they make use of an information sources and tools provided by people or organisations they know and trust.
• Youth – Social dynamics of an ICT-uptake
In IICD’s experience, the appropriation of ICTs by youth in support of farming activities is creating positive, though significant shifts in the social dynamics in rural farming communities. Strategies to support youth to use the ICT tools for their purposes need to be deliberate and well informed of particular opportunities and limitations within local contexts, and consequences for dynamics within the communities.
When addressing food security, land governance – rules and practices in governing access to and use of land – cannot be ignored. The links between food security and land governance are diverse, both direct and indirect, and connect processes at different levels of society. The most direct link at a local level consists of the large number of smallholder producers who are of great importance for producing food locally, especially in poor, rural areas where food security is a major concern. Land is one of the productive resources that poor people have. More indirectly, on a global scale, foreign investors are now buying up large tracts of land in developing countries, often with motives related to food security: production of food and feed stocks in their home countries. Also other factors cause an increase in pressure on land (and with that indirectly impact on the amount of land available for food production) including the production of biofuels, urbanization, infrastructure, tourism etc. In this process, often dubbed ‘land grabbing’ – the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South – smallholder producers in specific are loosing out. Good land governance, therefore, is essential in protecting smallholders’ access to land, making investments in agriculture inclusive and sustainable and through that contributing to better food security locally ánd globally.
As Kaag and Zoomers (2014) show, land grabbing takes place through a multitude of actors at different levels. To address these complex links, public and private accountability is key and very often lacking. A concrete step towards greater accountability are multi-stakeholder networks such as the Netherlands-based Land Governance Multi-stakeholder Dialogue and the LANDac Land Forum. Through the LANDac Land Forum initiative a platform in Uganda is set up, where exchange of experiences takes place as a way to open up the discussion around land investments in the country. A second track of activities within the LANDac Land Forum is to contribute to knowledge generation around benefit sharing arrangements and inclusive business models with stronger involvement of smallholders.
There is an urgent need for policies to better look at the linkages between food security and land governance. Through policies directly targeting the improvement of land governance in countries, for example by supporting local NGO’s in advocating for land rights and supporting and educating communities in claiming their rights, but also through supporting governments and implementing institutions in improving land governance. A specific focus should be on issues of gender and control over land; and the way in which women are addressed in policies around land. At the same time, we need to reflect on our own policies in the Netherlands more explicitly. For example: What is the impact of stimulating Dutch enterprises in investing in agriculture in developing countries? What is the impact of their activities on smallholder producers and on local food security and land governance? And how can links between agricultural investments, inclusive sustainable development and food security be optimized?
Land fragmentation is sometimes argued as one reason for impeded smallholder productivity. In theory, systematic land consolidation could be applied to enhance farm structures, improve delivery of service infrastructure (e.g. road and energy networks), and ultimately increase farmer productivity. These claims are backed up by the experiences of Western European countries. But, are these programs relevant to other country contexts (e.g. sub Saharan Africa)? Certainly, there are substantial social, economic, and environmental differences that are already well known. Recent work undertaken in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, conducted by ITC Faculty (University of Twente), again revealed how smallholders prefer their plots to be geographically spread: land fragmentation acts as a risk management strategy against crop failure or natural disasters. It also needs to be remembered that prior to undertaking modern systematic land consolidation activities, countries like the Netherlands already possessed both regularized tenure systems, and the land information needed to support the process. Many country contexts neither possess nor maintain complete land tenure records.
It is unclear what role, if any, land consolidation can play in the short and longer term. If there is a role, it needs to be determined whether existing approaches can be responsibly applied, or whether new context-specific thinking and tools are needed? In this regards, the expertise of the Netherlands in developing and applying innovative land consolidation techniques, coupled with the interest in responsible global agricultural investment, might play a leading role.
Building on previous expert discussions
Valuable insights may be hidden in several ‘troves’ of information relevant to food and nutrition security.
1. Since October 16 (World Food Day) 2007, the Agricultural Development Economics Division of FAO has organized more than 100 online consultations on its ‘Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition’ (FSNforum) (see website).
2. Since mid 2011 SOCIRES has organized a number of expert meetings on the nexus of food, nutrition, water and energy. Since then there has been a series of so-called Vijverberg expert meetings on invitation, while in 2012 FoodFirst has organized seven FoodFirst-Floriade Conferences. (see website).
Both websites contain a rich harvest of contributions which are relevant for all Targets of the current Expert consultation.
Smallholder agriculture
To give an example for Target 4 (smallholder agriculture), the FSNforum organized inter alia discussions on ‘Supporting small-scale farmers to access value-added agribusiness and other market opportunities’ (2010), ‘Constraints to Smallholder Investments’ (2012), ‘Enabling rural cooperatives and producer organizations to thrive as sustainable business enterprises’ (2012) and the ‘HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Report: Investing in smallholder agriculture for food and nutrition security (2012)’. The final report, commissioned by the Committee on World Food Security was published in June 2013. This report uses a sustainable livelihoods framework for understanding investments. Interestingly, as a result of its analysis of risks for smallholder agriculture at different levels, it does mention unfair competition from food imports and international land grabbing, but not the often mentioned competition of biofuels with food production.
In the forthcoming publication of the ASC (September 2014) entitled ‘Digging Deeper: Inside Africa’s Agricultural, Food and Nutrition Dynamics’, Sheu-Usman Akanbi and Akinyinka Akinyoade discuss the contributions of small-and large-scale farms and foreign and local investments to agricultural growth. Using Nigeria as a case study, the analyses show that the major engine of rural growth and livelihood improvement in Nigeria is small-scale agriculture and that large-scale farming is still in its emergent stage. Despite the ubiquity of small-scale farming, the sector faces numerous constraints due to factors such as limited technical and financial support, indifference among the youth to farming, inadequate government policies and people’s reliance on other livelihood sources. This leaves the country with few alternatives and leads to the conclusion that, to promote agricultural growth in Nigeria, sustained small-scale/local participation and foreign investment are needed to alleviate the fear of food insecurity if the country’s oil-driven economy begins to stutter when oil reserves dwindle.
The case of vegetables
Vegetables are the most affordable and accessible source of micronutrients. Next to animal source foods, vegetables are a principal source of vitamins and minerals, even after the necessary correction for their lesser bio-availability. Most vegetables contain more protein per 100g dry matter than staple foods and several vegetables reach the levels of legumes. A recent article gives insight in the nutritional and economic value of vegetables and proposes for tropical Africa a doubling of the present intake of about 100 g of vegetables to 200 g as a long-term realistic target. Read more here.
Compared to tropical Asia, the vegetable sector in Africa is lagging behind as a result of weak research, breeding, training and extension services, an insufficient seed distribution network and low purchasing power. The article sketches the scope of increasing vegetable production for the domestic African markets both from commercial vegetable production (such as peri-urban and ‘truck’ farming) and from production for personal use in fields and home gardens (e.g. through intercropping). It focuses on increasing the production and consumption of a number of commonly consumed leafy and non-leafy vegetables; some indigenous and some ‘exotic’ (introduced in recent times from other continents). The rationale for this focus on a limited number of types of vegetables produced and consumed in large volumes is, that investment in improving the yield of these widely consumed vegetables will pay off more in the near future than promoting the wide use of rare (so-called ‘orphan’) vegetables. The latter deserve also support, to avoid that they are lost, but may become more important at a later stage.
When looking at farming we look from a holistic perspective. Link the various themes and turn waste into a high quality compost to increase Soil Organic Matter (SOM). SOM is important for an efficient farming system, as it improves the soil’s structure and increases the water holding capacity. Also, it helps to sequester carbon in the soil.
The application of compost brings organic material back to the soil which is a considerable benefit, given the fact that the loss of Soil Organic Matter (SOM) is a worldwide problem. This loss is mainly caused by too intensive agricultural systems based on high chemical and mechanical inputs. A high SOM content in agricultural soils provides farmers with some important benefits which are not only of financial nature.
Below a list with the most important advantages:
Improvement of the soil’s structure: A higher amount of SOM leads to a better structure of the soil.
Improved biological disease suppression capacity: Soils with a higher amount of SOM tend to have a more intensive biological activity. The soil’s food web (which is fed with organic material) is more active. An active soil life leads to an improved biological disease suppression capacity.
Reduced erosion: A higher amount of SOM enables water to infiltrate into the soil more easily. This leads to less runoff of water on the soil surface and reduces erosion in mountain areas drastically.
A higher efficiency of applied nutrients: Nutrients applied to fields with a high amount of SOM tend to be used more efficiently. This is caused by an increase in the soil’s Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC).
Possible reduction in water use: In some areas, the amount of water used can be reduced in soils with a higher SOM content. This is induced by a higher soil water holding capacity (field capacity (FC) – wilting point (WP)). This benefit is very valuable, especially in areas that might be suffering of water scarcity in the future.
Better resilience against unstable and severe weather conditions: Climate change leads to unstable weather and environmental conditions. A higher amount of SOM can help the soil to become more resilient against these new developments.
Mitigation of climate change: SOM consists for a large part of carbon. By storing this carbon in soils in form of SOM, you prevent it from contributing to global warming.
Often smallholder farmers can be trained to use biomass which is available on their own farm to increase soilferility. This will result in a healthier and better product, lower costs of inputs, higher yields and a better income for the farmer.
The agricultural system in place today is a system that sustains poverty. Farmers have little bargaining power and incomes are low as agro-commodities are undifferentiated products – goods that can be interchanged with other goods of the same type. The absence of safety nets, standards or effective legal enforcement in combination with continuous price pressure from the market means that a lot of farmers barely survive. Poverty and low productivity go hand in hand. Plantations are, in general, not taken care of very well. Farming methods are outdated and there is a lack of resources to invest in fertilizers, pesticides or in replacing ageing trees or plants past their peak productivity. Without interference productivity will only diminish instead of rise.
To up productivity we need entrepreneurial farmers with knowledge, skills and resources to invest in their farms. Thinking bottom-up we can calculate the living income farmers need to enable farm investments. It is clear that commodity prices will have to rise and yields have to go up. The paradigm for the sector should be sustainable intensification: optimizing production (in quantity and quality) relative to inputs (e.g. land, water, fertilizer, labor), improving the livelihoods of farmers, while minimizing negative externalities (e.g. pollution, deforestation, depletion of soil and water sources). NewForesight conducted a study commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs that looked into a model to achieve sustainable intensification at scale, the final report can be read here.
Sustainable intensification requires farmers to be able to implement and use better agricultural and management practices, to have access to and properly use the right inputs, and have an enabling environment that provides access to training and finance. A farmer’s ability to absorb and access better practices and inputs depends to a large extent on the farmer’s level of organization and professionalism. Educated, business-minded farmers are the only way to secure a sustainable cocoa supply in the future. They have the knowledge and financial resources to tend to their farms, and produce higher yields that generate enough income to feed their families, and at the same time do not harm the environment to ensure future yields.
NewForesight has expertise in farmer business modeling and service delivery evaluation in the context of different interventions, tropical commodities, and countries. The models we develop enable us to extract valuable lessons regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of different service delivery models in smallholder agriculture. Moreover, it provides strategic insight into the expected outcome of different sustainability strategies, which can be used to tailor interventions to the specific context of a particular program. More of our work on http://www.newforesight.com.
From my personal perspective the Netherlands policy for food & nutrition security would include the following areas:
1. Improving smallholder yields of staple food crops. Without this, it is hard to achieve food and nutrition security. This would require improving the resource base, particularly soil fertility that has been neglected for long. This requires improving access to inputs (seeds and fertilizers), extension and advisory services, and output markets. This is the major thrust of AGRA’s work.
2. Improving the production, marketing and utilization of vegetables. This is also important for improving household nutrition. AGRA has developed a strategy for vegetables and is forging strong partnership on its implementation with institution in the Netherlands, including Wageningen-UR and the private sector in the vegetable industry.
3. Enhancing resiliency to climate change and variability. Agricultural water management is an important intervention here, that is missing from the works of many organizations including AGRA. We have developed a strategy for agric water management, but we yet need to secure funding for it. Other related interventions include conservation agriculture (we are piloting some interventions; there are some successful programs in Zambia) and strengthening early warning systems.
4. Livestock production in smallholder farming systems. A key intervention here is enhancing the integration of crop-livestock interaction. This is enhanced when the yields of crops are increased since this results in crop residues that can complement well livestock feeds.
5. Increasing capacity for R&D and for innovation in all the above. This requires strengthening the agricultural research and training institutions in Africa. And this is where the partnership that AGRA has forged with Wageningen-UR is heading. Innovations could include the use of ICT, and its use to extend agricultural innovation to farmers and agribusinesses in different value chains, and to create jobs and attract the youth to agriculture.
UTZ Certified gives productivity increase a central role in its program, for smallholders and larger farms, because it is essential for achieving our mission: to create a world where sustainable farming is the norm. Current productivity gains should not be at the cost of future opportunities and therefore requires sustainable practices. This will contribute to economic viability of farms, a better life for farmers and the mitigation of global problems such as growing food demand and resource scarcity.
To adopt productivity enhancing technologies and practices, farmers need to overcome significant barriers to adoption such as:
For smallholders with small plots of land, prices can be so low that even a substantial productivity gain will not guarantee a living income. If productivity increases extensively, fewer farmers are needed to produce the same amount of products. If smallholders cannot make their farm economically viable, they may be forced to grow other crops – or go out of business. This requires different stakeholders, particularly national governments and the private sector, to work on alternative incomes for current smallholders and their children at sector/country level.
Knowing that many of those to benefit from the UN Zero Hunger challenge are smallholder farmers, this UN Target rightly focuses on smallholder productivity and income. Increasing income is the real challenge, as productivity increases do not automatically pay off in higher income. For their produce smallholders need a market which is not saturated, otherwise a rise in productivity will decrease the price per unit thus raping off the benefits of the productivity increase.
Where farmers can increase their (net) income by 100% this is major progress at an individual level. Note however that their absolute income will then still be low to very low. From that perspective, a 100% income increase per 2025 or 2030 is relevant but not particularly ambitious.
Cordaid favors the promotion of agro-ecological approaches to farming as best practice for productive, sustainable and climate smart agriculture.
Interventions in smallholder production need a value chain lens: make sure that there is a market the product, create stronger market linkages, deliver quality produce, and ensure efficiency at harvest, storage, processing. Cordaid supports groups of smallholders in building their linkages to local and regional markets.
Cordaid believes that the Dutch food security policies rightly focus on value chains. However, Dutch policy attention and funding support should balance international value chains (where market parties should take the lead – both in funding and in implementation) to local and regional value chains. Where private sector and public policies are absent or fragile civil society has a particularly important role to play.
The need for 100% increase in production is debatable. What needs to change is not just the total food production but much more the profitability of farming and the conditions under which people farm. Land and resource governance will be key in this. Farmland should be dedicated as farmland and not left for speculation or investment opportunities for rich urban people but remain at the disposal for those who wish to choose a career as farmer. Many farmers world-wide are now disillusioned and not much willing to invest in their farm-enterprise. Farming is all too often seen in the developing countries as the reason why you are poor. Making farming more attractive as a modern way of life that can provide for a good income and life will be essential to motivate the young generation to stay in agriculture.
The Dutch agro-sector has also been confronted with these issues in the past. The joint expertise in the public sector (agricultural education), financial sectors and business sectors will provide the platform from which agriculture can make the transition from a subsistence way of life into a professional career choise as a farm-entrepreneur.
This is not the right question.
The world produces enough calories to meet the projected 9 billion in 2050. And in addition, 70% of the food is being produced by small-scale farmers. Therefore, it is not about production, it is about distribution of food between people, it is about the quality of food being produced and consumed (maize or a diverse diet), about the purpose of the food: energy, fodder for animals and it is a matter of waste.
The question should be: how can the Netherlands contribute to small-scale farmers worldwide to come to sustainable food production? We see 5 options for transition:
In order to improve food security there is need to enhance the farmer skills in entrepreneurial and natural resources conservation and management. This will significantly change the traditional behavior of rural farmers to adopt new farming ethnics and practices including Disaster Risk management in all planning and programming will finally lead to improved food Security and nutrition at household level while also tackling the issue of value chain development.
Smallholders suffer form use of small tracks of land, lack of capital, poor knowledge on practices of cultivation technics and soil infertility. Needed are access to agricultural funding of banks, the IMF and national government to purchase larger tracks of arable land and have access to agricultural inputs and also formation on cultivation technics is important.
The local government is the main actor, and Dutch support of great importance.
Interestingly, the 100% increase in smallholder productivity is exactly one of the targets we are working towards in the 2SCALE program, a value-chain based agricultural development program, BoP Inc is implementing together with its partners IFDC and ICRA in 9 countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, and that is funded by the Dutch government.
What is interesting about this, is that we learn about this challenge from the field and can provide a more in-depth perspective in addition to many publications on this topics, and the many “lists” of smallholder-challenges that stem from these publications. So to keep it simple, and to bring focus in this debate, what are we learning from 2SCALE:
We look at smallholder productivity from a systemic, value chain driven approach: smallholders work towards markets, where the incentives for productivity increases can be materialized. From the CASE (Competitive Agricultural Systems and Enterprises) approach in 2SCALE, we focus on organizing four main aspects of this value chain around clusters of farmers: agro-dealers, business advisory services, processors and traders, and financial services.
With this approach, we address three key issues that we continuously see arising with the topic of smallholder productivity:
The success of this approach learns that narrowing down the various lists with smallholder challenges to a pro-active approach focused on these three key issues makes most sense. Of course, many other topics are important as well, but these issues are the drivers of true change for smallholder productivity, and the current budget cuts for food security policy demand a more focused approach.
BoP Inc’s aim is to further catalize the effectiveness of the interventions on these 3 key themes by focusing on its added value:
Connection with international companies
the most important aspects of involving international companies is to see if they have an added value to the current situation in the local economy. In 2SCALE, we have involved FrieslandCampina in Nigeria in local dairy production chains. As there was virtually no market-driven smallholder dairy development, the involvement of FrieslandCampina is additional, and brings in knowledge, innovations and necessary investments in local infrastructure
Adapted agricultural technology
In BoP Inc’s opinion one of the most underestimated themes when it comes to smallholder productivity. Dutch companies are market leaders in many agricultural technology sectors. However, their product propositions are focused on large scale agriculture. They do not (yet) see smallholder farmers as an interesting business cases. This needs the involvement of an intermediary, to catalyze inclusive innovation. With the company Mueller we have developed a small scale, solar-powered, dairy cooling unit.
BoP markets
Many agricultural development projects focus on production for export markets. Even though this can fetch a price premium on the market, this is not realistic for many smallholder farmers. With 2SCALE we focus on local markets. The most unmet demand in the local markets is at the base of the pyramid, consumers living on less than $4 a day. Whereas the market potential at this consumer segment is large (estimated in 2010 to be $ 2,89 trillion) many local companies and farmer groups don’t know these consumers, and don’t know how to reach them. In 2SCALE, BoP Inc supports local companies and farmer groups in developing product propositions and distribution channels for these consumers.
First and foremost: increasing smallholder productivity and income depends on closing the gender gap for women small-scale farmers. This is the International year of the Family Farmer and the Africa Year of Agriculture, but most policies still fail to meet the “Boserup Test” – unless the majority of resources go to women, then the policy is making matters worse by widening the gender gap. More on this in our reaction to the ‘what’s missing’ reflection in area number 6.
Most of the rest of this target is excellent and clear.
Perhaps something more could be said about “resilience”: defined as the ability to help people withstand shocks: economic, climatic, social or political. Impoverished farmers, in particular, suffer a “Food Price” crisis every single year, as prices skyrocket in the months before the harvest, and plummet right after. Our community-managed food banks in Africa are just one example of community initiatives that build resilience. Since the Bangladesh floods of 1990 where our Youth Ending Hunger volunteers were among the very first responders — to our work in support of community-led reconstruction in Tsunami affected villages in 2004, we’ve seen the profound difference it makes for communities to be mobilized, organized and confident in their ability to take immediate action even when no outside resources are able to reach them. So that natural disaster need not lead to human catastrophe.
Key Interventions:
It is clear that investing in food security means investing in smallholders: according to IFAD (2011), there are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in the developing world, supporting almost 2 billion people who depend on them for their livelihood, and these small farms produce about 80 per cent of the food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet despite their enormous contribution to world food security, smallholders also belong to the most poor and vulnerable and face a number of critical investment constraints that subject them to a high level of precarity and risk.
These include amongst many others limited access to land and other natural resources (especially water) often due to highly unequal land distribution patterns and tenure regimes; unfavourable market conditions and lack of access to appropriate markets, especially financial markets; marginalisation in public policy, agricultural research, and investment decision making processes; and lack of recognition or violations of their basic rights.
It is vital that Dutch food security policy address some of these constraints in order to realize the full potential of smallholder agriculture.
An important recommendation for Dutch policy to consider is that offered by the High Level Panel of Experts of the UN Committee on World Food Security. In their 2013 report ‘Investing in Smallholder Agriculture for Food Security’, they recommend developing National Smallholder Investment Strategies:
It is time to put smallholder agriculture back at the heart of public policy and public investment plans. This can be done through:
Substantial evidence from case-studies all around the world indicates that it is exactly these types of ‘public-peasant’ investment synergies which can deliver the greatest returns in terms of food security and poverty alleviation.
Public-private partnerships can also have a role to play but here also there is an important role for the state to play in setting in place a proper regulatory regime and supporting the voice of farmers’ organisations so that the power imbalances between different actors are not abused. Such partnerships should also place the accent on development local, regional, and national markets first and foremost.
Target 4 sounds deceptively clear-cut: it will be accomplished if both smallholders’ productivity and income have doubled. But I wonder if any thought has been given to the question “how do we know if this has happened?”. In other words, is this target SMART? It does not look like it.
First of all, it has to be known what the present situation is with regard to smallholder productivity and income. Otherwise, it is meaningless to speak of a xxx% increase. Second, would this ‘present situation’ involve all smallholders? Or a sample? Making this clear beforehand avoids interpretation differences later on. The same goes for a term as ‘income’. Is this ‘net income from agriculture after pertinent production costs’ or just income? Again, the choice has to be clear.
In other words, what is it we are going to measure, both now and in 2030 (and hopefully at some intermediate points in time, to see how it’s going), so that we know whether the goal had been achieved? Perhaps the Zero Hunger Challenge people have given thought to this issue, and then I would be glad to learn more about it. Otherwise, it would be good to:
It is this kind of regular measurements that enable us to see whether we are on track with this goals (or, indeed, with any goal). A warning is in order however: even though we might see steady progress towards these goals it will be hard to attribute the achievements conclusively to any interventions. But that is another matter and, for the record, in Agriterra we are convinced that farmers who organize themselves are the key. Any rural intervention in which farmers are mere passive objects or ‘aid recipients’ is doomed to fail. In other words, we very much applaud the third recommendation by Hans Eenhoorn below!
Nowhere is the failure to alleviate hunger more glaring than in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the number and proportion of hungry people are forecast to increase in many countries, due to fast increase of the population (towards 2 billion by 2050) and low agricultural productivity. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 200 million of the world’s undernourished. A paradigm shift has to be realised, away from the conventional macroeconomic improvements and towards an approach that concentrates on agricultural development, entrepreneurship, the application of science, capital investment, mindset change and public commitment to achieve food security for the poor and help them out of their “poverty trap”. Economic growth alone is not sufficient to lift the poor and hungry out of their misery, because the poverty-reducing effects of growth largely bypass the rural poor.
Given the pressing needs of Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 30% of the population are chronically hungry and an even higher percentage malnourished, combined with the fact that 65% of the population live in rural areas, it is imperative to focus attention on the entrepreneurial development of Sub-Saharan smallholders. Fifty percent or more of the rural poor have access to farmland, but for various reasons are incapable of growing enough food to feed themselves adequately, let alone produce marketable surpluses. Supporting smallholder farmers to feed themselves and produce marketable surpluses is the quickest — and in the short-run the most efficient — way of achieving food security for at least a hundred million poor people in Africa. The World Development Report 2008 , “Agriculture for development”, fully supports this and takes the view that chronic hunger will only be met in poorer countries if a sharper focus on agriculture is used as an instrument for development. There are virtually no examples of mass poverty reduction that did not have their origins in sharp rises in employment and self-employment as a result of the higher productivity in small family farms.
The studies of the United Nations Taskforce on Hunger, as well as those of many other institutions, propose a range of technical and social means that can reduce hunger for most groups and in diverse contexts. Apart from the necessary policy reforms the recommendations of the UN Taskforce on Hunger focus on:
However, such technically and environmentally sound interventions will only succeed if local entrepreneurship is stimulated. Policy changes that create an enabling context and which remove constraints to entrepreneurship are equally necessary. Increases in Official Development Assistance (ODA) for investment in agricultural development and participation of the private sector form part of these recommendations. Entrepreneurial spirit and activity to capture the opportunities that science and technology offers is essential to bring about the increases in productivity required and identify the markets to supply.
Entrepreneurship of small farmers means farmers that are capable of moving beyond subsistence farming and of planning production for defined markets with a profit objective. It can also be concluded that productivity increases through entrepreneurship that are of sufficient scale to seriously reduce hunger and poverty can only develop if the major constraints for entrepreneurial development can be removed. However, the poor smallholder faces so many constraints to improving his/her economic situation (which also differs from individual to individual and from community to community) that resolving one or two of these constraints will not be sufficient. It is therefore concluded that a holistic or integrated approach is required to identify and understand the whole set of constraints (or at least the most important ones) in a given situation and to remove the major constraints simultaneously. The holistic view has to embrace the whole agricultural system from planning to production to market. The most important constraints in a given situation have to be properly defined and tackled simultaneously.
Understanding the mindset of smallholders will be essential for enabling effective support, and a change of mindset is essential for progress. Capital, trust and incentives can change the mindset and stimulate entrepreneurship for the majority of farmers except for the most traditional. Following analysis and conclusions, actionable recommendations are proposed.
1. Think entrepreneurial
The overriding recommendation is that new initiatives to fight poverty and hunger should develop their action plans starting from an entrepreneurial point of view. This implies the understanding that entrepreneurship is more than just producing or processing. It is also about markets, profit and fair trade. This is very much the realm of business and interlocking agro-food chains, profitable in every link of the chain. Here the established national and multi-national agro-food industries should play a major role in providing incentives for smallholders to enter the chain. “Out grower” systems for supplying the local food-processing industry, for import substitution or export operations are opportunities that have been underdeveloped so far.
2. Be very generous with capital injections for a prolonged period
Capital injections to the tune of billions of dollars for a prolonged period are necessary . Public and private donors should live up to their promises to invest in agriculture. African Governments should live up to the UA agreement to spend at least 10% of BPP on agricultural development .
3. Build efficient and effective farmer-based organizations
It is essential for smallholder farmers to organize themselves and create countervailing power on input and output markets and become respected partners in negotiations with the governments. It is recommended to dramatically increase the support for farmers to organize themselves properly. Local governments, NGOs, knowledge institutions, international donors and the private sector must give the highest priority to the facilitation of the establishment of FBOs.
4. Increase vigilance on Good Governance
Good Governance at national, regional and local level that facilitates an enabling environment and a positive business climate for smallholders is at present more of an exception than the rule. It is therefore recommended that in bilateral and multilateral discussions and negotiations, a lot of emphasis be placed on measures to provide incentives for smallholder farmers. Governments in the North, individually or through their organizations (EU, OECD) and the national and international private sector should use their influence and increase their pressure on Governments in the South to accomplish this.
5. Enable a step-change in agricultural research and knowledge transfer
Agricultural research and knowledge transfer is essential to stimulate productivity increase. It is strongly recommended that renowned knowledge institutions like WUR are enabled to make their skills and competencies available on a wide scale, for smallholder development, in close cooperation with national institutions in the South. Governments in the South, private donors, private companies and the knowledge institutions themselves should make ample funds available for agricultural research and knowledge transfer.
6. Improve rural infrastructures drastically
An adequate infrastructure is a precondition for the successful marketing of agricultural products. It is recommended to place rural infrastructure improvements very high on every development agenda. Rural infrastructure projects are usually sustainable investments with a long life span and which also provide economic impulses by employing surplus rural labour. Governments in the North and international institutions (World Bank, IMF) should become much more generous with low-interest loans and grants to stimulate infrastructural development in rural areas.
7. Take a holistic approach in order to tackle constraints simultaneously
The (new) action plans to stimulate agricultural development of the multitude of smallholders must take the constraints for entrepreneurial development in their holistic context into account; an integrated approach is a must. This is not to say that any individual support organization/donor has to solve all constraints, but that “orchestration” is required to tackle the main constraints in a cooperative way (unfortunately cooperation is not the strong point of most development-assistance actors).
8. Place women at the core of every Development Cooperation programme
In any action plan for Africa, it would be an enormous mistake to overlook the African woman, as she is the backbone of society. Fifty percent or more of Sub-Saharan smallholder farmers are women. Without empowering them, supporting them to organize themselves and obtain full democratic rights, which they can really exercise, very little progress will be made. Discrimination of women is one of the most important reasons for the perpetuity of hunger and poverty in Africa.
9. Realize that fair trade sometimes means protection
In order to create a dynamic farming society it is necessary to have stable output price relations, for which (temporarily) protection from cheap imports is required and taxation on agricultural products is minimized. It is recommended that governments that want to stimulate smallholder productivity take this into account. Governments in the North and in the South and their institutions (EU, AU, OECD, WTO) should be more aware of the fact that the development of markets that also work for the poor (smallholders) are essential for the economic development of developing nations that are dependent on agriculture to feed and employ the urban and rural poor.
Besides difficulties related to the production, small operators run against challenges of transformation and conservation of crops to get around the rotting of its products on the market. This lack of opportunities decreases or sometimes even brakes the reaching of their income. Price fixation of crops in raw state depend on consumers or buyers to the detriment of the small farmers, as they are far from being protected by economic politics and businesses of the country. This is one of the determinants of discouragement and unparalleled laziness of some operators.
Crop transformation will give added value to those food products and influence alimentary habits: the same nutritive matters consumed in another form and sometimes in different circumstances other than the necessary consuming in unprocessed state. Access to markets could rise with productivity assurance and by the growth of incomes. In this sense, the small farmer will find himself encouraged by the result of efforts and services rendered to the environing population. He will seek to improve its providing, since the more the demand increases, the more he will look to satisfy this demand. Methods and value chain approaches should be developed adapted to the product and the farmer and the environment. Insisted should be on large scale production and possibilities and practices of transformation with adapted means of harvested products. Also every seconded farmer should be given the chance of resistance to the fiery competitiveness of the agricultural market.
The Dutch government should be involved in national and international political and commercial agriculture advocacy, so that certain protectionist aspects and the accompanying measures in favour of small holder farmers will be taken into consideration.