Smallholder farmers hold the key to global food security

While a lot of money is being pumped into agriculture in a bid to boost production and alleviate hunger in the world, these efforts are unlikely to succeed without focusing on mixed smallholder farmers, a new study has warned.

The study, which puts countries like Kenya––long criticised for neglecting the smallholders–– on the spot, says smallholders hold the key to ending perennial hunger in the world.

Notably, the report published last week warns that the monies committed to fund programmes to boost small-scale agriculture in developing countries might not succeed in feeding the world’s soaring population.

This is not only due to increasing population and changing environment, but also little “intellectual commitment” to the ubiquitous small-scale “mixed” farmers who raise both crops and animals and are the source of much of today’s food supplies and economic development.

Recent statistics from UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation paint a grim picture on the world’s food situation.

Poor nations, will pay between 56 per cent and 74 per cent more on cereal imports; prices of basic commodities will balloon and export restrictions will increase.

In the recent past, Kenya has experienced nine quarterly rain failures, causing acute food shortages that forced the government to declare the country’s food situation a national emergency in 2008 and renew campaigns to wean the country of rain-fed agriculture.

“Food prices remain at above average levels, reportedly as a consequence of inflated transportation costs for imported maize, restricting food access for low-income market dependent households, especially in urban areas where wages have remained comparatively static,” says the latest outlook report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Similarly, Global Hunger Index report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) says more Kenyans are in need of emergency food today than they were 20 years ago.

But while poor rains have for years been blamed for the food woes, poor policies to support small-scale farmers expose countries to frequent food shortages.

Indeed, history has shown that there is a close relationship between investment levels in agriculture and food security.

For example, good progress had been made in the 1980s and early 1990s in reducing chronic hunger, largely due to increased investment in agriculture following the global food crisis of the early 1970s.

But in the past decade, as official development assistance devoted to agriculture declined substantially, the number of hungry people increased.

Globally, FAO says 1.02 billion people are today going hungry, with Kenya having over 10 million such people.

The report’s authors, who include scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), IFPRI and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the World Bank, urge wealthy countries, which pledged US$20 billion for developing countries’ agriculture at the G8 summit in Italy last year, to look beyond “business as usual” investments.