Breakout Session 6: Improving small farm technology and sustainable resource management

Paper "Improving small farm technology and sustainable resource management" by Ruddy Rabbinge, Wageningen University, presented by Douglas Wholey

Chair’s remarks and key points:  Rodney Cooke, IFAD

Note: the discussion evolved around Professor Rudy Rabbinge’s paper

• What science and technology need to enable smallholders to break the spiral of poverty? The paper’s underlining theme is sustainable agricultural intensification: the best of modern science and the best of indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) backed by ecological literacy, to achieve increased natural resource and labour productivity.

• The paper stressed an urgent need for science and technology tailored for smallholder farmers to break the spiral of poverty, with more attention to orphan crops, low cost technologies, farming system approaches, precision agriculture, leapfrogging technologies to high productive systems, and ecological literacy

The three main themes that came out of the discussion were:

• Agriculture not an objective in itself – the goal is to improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers. This will be achieved by meeting socio-economic needs, nutritional needs and improving the resilience and adaptive capacity of farming systems.

• Little information and knowledge gets to smallholder farmers. Capacity building – from education systems to research systems to advisory services – is the basis of an enabling rural environment where smallholders will consider innovation, accept challenges and handle risk management. Furthermore, if smallholder farmers do not have access to markets, infrastructure, natural resources, how do we turn those backwaters into challenging environments where young people want to stay and develop?

• Enabling polices are hugely significant, but country and context specific in terms of the choices of technology. For instance, what is the point of looking at sustainable water management if water costs nothing? It is also found that policy is often on paper but not implemented or operationalized.
• Polarisation of policy-makers and researchers – Politicians often are mostly interested in (and derive their knowledge from) media reports rather than seminars or academic journals but agriculture, and especially agricultural technologies, carry complex discussions of what works where and why. In essence, we have to look for the best: in modern science, in ITK, in ecological literacy.

Synthesis of discussion

There was a consensus for the need to go beyond the goal of agriculture and production in itself, to generally improving the livelihoods and well-being of smallholder farmers. For that to happen, three kinds of needs were identified, namely, socio-economic, nutritional and resilience of farming systems. Socio-economic needs directly and indirectly relate to agriculture, including food, income, education, health and shelter. Nutritional needs refer not only to carbohydrates but also to proteins, minerals and vitamins; the basic components of what constitutes a healthy and balanced diet. Participants brought up the importance of neglected and underutilised crops (so-called orphan crops) while focus remains on the big four – maize, wheat, rice, and potato. This focus on energy-rich yet nutrient-poor foods is regarded as a public health problem for which the solution lies in agriculture. We have to identify how to translate a nutritious diet into farming, the paper suggesting that research in science and technology tailored for smallholders would enable farmers to break the spiral of poverty, with more attention to orphan crops, low cost technologies, farming systems approaches, precision agriculture, leapfrogging technologies to high productive systems, and ecological literacy at all levels. Finally, farmers must adjust to drivers of change in agriculture, such as climate change, globalisation and demographics, hence the third need for resilience and adaptive capacity of farming systems. Adaptation to climate change can be achieved by minimising risk through increased diversity (of crop varieties or of agricultural practices) or more complex approaches.

The discussion placed a major emphasis on farming systems that are both environmentally friendly and increase productivity. The aim is to have farming systems with high productivity and optimal use of external inputs (i.e., avoiding unnecessary use of inputs), while harnessing agro-ecological systems for sustainability and minimising the adverse impact of intensifying agriculture on the environment and health. For instance, considerable weight was given to the pertinence of conservation agriculture, agro-forestry, orphan crops, biological fixation, and both integrated nutrient management (INM) and pest management (IPM). Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the major farming systems which would have an impact on poverty reduction and rural development are the irrigated, maize mixed, tree crop and cereal root crop mixed farming systems.

To improve production, smallholder farmers need information and capacity. Yet, little information and knowledge is passed on. For instance, it is not sufficient for farmers to access inputs and use them, but also to know how to use them in the right manner. In the case of training smallholders in low-cost techniques that might be perceived as out-dated - e.g., conservation agriculture, slash-and-burn, and slash-and-mulch - discussing is more effective than preaching and be aware that farmers require time to accept the techniques. Various speakers noted that sustainable agricultural intensification needs not only the best of modern science and indigenous technical knowledge, but also ecological literacy to increase the productivity of both natural resources and labour. This ecological literacy needs to be further emphasised – from education systems to research systems to advisory services. Several speakers mentioned the urge to restructure extension services, since in many countries these services mostly deal with conventional high-input agriculture.

Despite policy concerns of sustainability, decentralisation and bottom-up approaches, many governments’ agricultural policies are still a poor extension of the Green Revolution. Conventional agriculture has been heavily supported compared to alternative forms. Governments and policy-makers need to rethink their approach towards agriculture, and see that existing polices exist are implemented and operationalized. Many of the agro-ecological approaches mentioned in this session have been proven to maximise yields – there is no romanticism in these approaches. Some participants talked about IFAD’s potential as a facilitator of a value chain of governance, promoting agro-ecological principles across the chain.

Yet, however good and appropriate technologies are, they will not work if the rural environment is not enabling.  Smallholder farmers must have access to and ability to use natural resources, markets, infrastructure, and capacity to participate in decision making processes that will convert remote places into appealing environments for young people, promote innovation and effective risk management.

Lastly, there was a brief discussion on polarisation. Some discussants observed that policies are directly linked to the politicians and policy-makers themselves, who usually derive their knowledge from media reports. Agriculture and its technology, on the other hand, involve complex discussion of what works where and why, which often emerge in seminars and academic journals as opposed to media reports.