Panellists

Kevin Cleaver, IFAD
Sir Gordon Conway, Imperial College, London
John Coonrod, The Hunger Project, Washington
Hafez Ghanem, FAO
Kavita Prakash-Mani, SYNGENTA
Maggie Kigozi, Investment Centre, Uganda
Heike Kuhn, Embassy of Germany
Esther Penunia, AFA
Franklin Moore, USAID
Prabhu Pingali, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations

Facilitator
Mishal Husain, BBC

---

Summary

The panel discussion in the final session of the conference underscored the importance of four diverse yet interrelated themes: the political environment, technology, innovation and knowledge, the relevance of value-chains and the issue of scaling up local solutions. The discussion also elaborated on the different roles that a range of actors need to play for successfully improving the livelihoods and sustainability of smallholder farming.

Political environment

Despite knowing what needs to be done to improve smallholder farming, very little is actually being done. While we have developed, and have access to, a wide range of innovations (both indigenous and external), they are not enough on their own and the constraint often becomes a lack of political will. It was felt by the participants that a key missing ingredient is institutional, i.e., an enabling policy environment. We therefore need to take action (campaigning) to organise that political will, as it will not happen on its own, especially as smallholder farmers are often voiceless and unable to put pressure on their governments themselves.

There was a clear understanding that policies should be country-driven and the state must take ownership of such policies, while at the same time enabling an environment where other actors, namely smallholder farmers, the private sector, the larger civil society and, to a certain extent, donors are included in policy-making.

Particularly regarding donors, it was noted that sometimes when there is political will on the government side, donors’ interventions could hamper it or push for their own agendas that might not necessarily the best. It was clear that, for instance, research and extension should be demand-driven (or needs-driven) and not donor-driven, as it is preferable that (small) governments making big changes, rather than big agencies making small changes. We need to organise donor thinking around value chains, from skills and knowledge, to inputs, to investments and programmes. Ultimately, donors must abide to the pledges made in the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security. One unanswered question from the floor was in regards to trade; taking into consideration the global political economy of trade and agro-industry, and the ghost of a food crisis haunting us, would there be a need for national or regional market protection for smallholder farmers who lack bargaining power against larger capitalistic agro-industries.

Liberalisation and the movement towards market economies is not working in agriculture. Due to donor-driven and IFI-driven reforms of scaling back the state since the 80s, many countries are presently faced with an institutional vacuum, as this space was only partly filled by the private sector. While building the capacity of smallholder farmers, we need to rebuild some of these institutions; using local government closer to its people, getting local democracy to work, using women and the youth to build upon. We need to create institutional chains – different clusters working together within a value chain approach. Yet, value chains are complex and smallholder farmers need to be organised and engaged in partnerships to get the most of them. There is a clear need for partnerships, not only between smallholder farmers and the private sector to develop markets, but a more complex integrated approach to agriculture, health and education in rural areas to keep them vibrant and appealing. As highly concentrated markets do not work, sufficient competition must be developed (e.g., at regional level) along with demand and markets to ensure efficiency and fair prices for smallholder farmers. We need systematic investment to release constraints and both the right products and approaches must be taken – we need to match views and expectations. Finally, we must not forget net food buyers, people who get their entitlements through labour, and the impact that making smallholder farming more entrepreneurial (read commercial) can have on this group in terms of social protection.

Innovation technology, knowledge

There is agreement that the right technology exists. However, diffusion of diverse technologies to smallholding farmers must take into account a more volatile and dynamic world of environmental and socio-economic challenges. Crucial in helping smallholders is the integration of science-based and indigenous technology. This calls for an environment that enables farmers to make informed choices that are in tune with their unique needs.

The diversity of technologies was expressed in various examples by discussants, from simple solutions to technological approaches, i.e. micro-dosing of fertilizer in bottle caps, integrated pest management, hybrid rice adapted to the local needs and practices, use of BT-cotton in India, technology built into seeds for better water use and nitrogen efficiency, greater adaptation of the use of agrochemicals to location and crop, improved crop storage facilities (film projected), agro-ecological agriculture as an approach, organic production (film projected), farmer field-schools and others.    

The consensus is that commitments by donors, governments and NGOs on R&D for smallholder farmers are following through. Further, a realization that the public sector has to return to traditional extension services was made. A network of new agro-dealers is spreading seeds and information, but there needs to be more knowledge exchange with farmers, about scientific changes and to encourage innovation. In this sense, there is a need to innovate in ways to empower communities to demand services

Despite many successful technological examples, these aren’t being diffused enough to smallholder farmers. The degree in which the success stories are primarily ‘outside’ driven was discussed. It was emphasized that going beyond the technology is required, for example, there is a need to have first an enabling environment. A call was made for a systematic way in which constraints are released, using the example that at the regional level sufficient competition must be developed along with markets to ensure efficiency. Furthermore, the solutions might appear simple, but the operationalization can be complicated. The technologies are there, but further commitment and a refreshed view are needed to bridge the gap that is constantly leaving smallholders outside of access to technology and without scalable knowledge.          

Integrating small farmers in value-chains

A willingness to heighten market activity is present at all stages of the value chain, indicative of a landscape of new growth opportunities. This includes persistently higher prices, changing tastes and consumption patterns, and modernizing market and retail systems. Private sector actors are claiming their interest in engaging with smallholder agriculture enterprises and smallholder farmers have shown entrepreneurial spirit. But to move beyond willingness, a favourable business climate must enable transactions and facilitate cooperation among an evolving set of actors, including those still in the process of organizing and building their capacities to conduct business. Consider business models that best address the interests of actors not explicitly identified in the value chain; youth, women, the environment.

Building the capacity of farmers to engage in markets is essential for them to improve their bargaining power and capture value-added. In this respect, farmer organizations hold enormous potential for engaging with networks for inputs and outputs, and, more importantly, in giving farmers a voice in business negotiations and governance. However, this points to the need for the capacity-building of actors across the value-chain. Comprehension of the dynamic context in which smallholder farmers operate will guide economic and environmental decisions for all value-chain actors, and hold implications for the future of their enterprises.

The commitment to a value-chain approach requires that governments comply with market forces and avoid creating disincentives for transacting with smallholder farmers. Interventions should work around rather than impose on private sector activity, at the risk of distorting markets. Encouraging market activity does not exclude regulation. There is a critical role for public policy in ensuring competitiveness and systematic change along rural market value-chains, and in releasing the institutional constraints that deter private sector activity.

Scaling up solutions

A genuine challenge was identified, and discussed at length, in how to scale up successful farm innovations. These are often simple and effective local solutions to problems that farmers face. Operationalizing simple solutions on a large scale even within a single country is often difficult due to the complex social, political and administrative conditions. Also, the widely varying organization of farming, the different groups of people with differing vulnerabilities and the changing conditions of agricultural production within a country meant that it may not be possible to merely scale up the successful innovations which are essentially shaped by particular local conditions.

An essential requirement for scaling up ingenious farm-level solutions is to think of the larger scale at the time of project formulation and design. It was felt that seed-based GMO solutions, where seeds with built-in efficiencies are used, are easier to scale up than management-oriented innovation. Though, there are genuine successful examples of the latter like the Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which has been used on a larger scale in parts of Asia.

It was also pointed out that scaling up local innovations may not always be an ideal solution. The example of the local storage innovation, that effectively ensured better food-output prices for small farmers beyond harvest time, illustrated how solving a problem for those who produce food, it may create a problem for another group – those who get their entitlements to food through labour. Such groups buy a major share of their food requirements just after harvests when supply floods the markets and prices are low. With large scale storage just after harvest, that option will be precluded. Accompanying institutional interventions are therefore required for such disadvantaged groups when such innovations are scaled up. 

The other constraint to scaling up local innovations was the vacuum created by the demise of many public sector institutions, which was not adequately filled by the private players. This necessitates the building of new institutions for reaching solutions to farmers on a large scale. While simple local innovations can raise productivity by small but significant amounts, it is also necessary to have large-scale public investments that can address several infrastructural constraints that smallholder farmers usually face.