Excellencies,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great privilege and pleasure to welcome you today. This is our third South-South cooperation event since 2009, jointly organised with the Chinese Government here in China. And I am delighted to see  so many distinguished participants in the audience.

I would like to extend particular thanks to Director General Zheng Xiaosong and the Ministry of Finance for their initiative and support of this event. Thank you DG Zheng for being here in person to open this important gathering.

I would also like to thank the International Poverty Reduction Center of China [IPRCC] for organizing this event.

The developing world has much to learn from China’s experience in addressing rural poverty and rural development.

Events such as this conference provide an opportunity for us to share our knowledge and learn from each other as we work towards our common objectives of reducing rural poverty and meeting the Millennium Development Goals, not just here in China, but throughout the world.

The importance of small farms

We live in a world where the number of people going hungry is increasing, and where the population is growing. We must ask ourselves – who will feed the world in 2050, when the global population is expected to be more than 9 billion people?

The answer to that question is to be found in the rural areas of this great nation China, and other countries such as those represented here today.

There are around five hundred million small farms in the world – and when I say small, these are farms of less than two hectares. They support around 2 billion people. More than 75 per cent of these farms are in the Asia and the Pacific region. In Africa, 80 per cent of all farms are small.

Small farms are often more productive, per hectare, than large farms, when agro-ecological conditions and access to technology are comparable.

One reason is that small farmers have a strong personal incentive to get the most from their land and from their own family labour.

Another reason is that family farms have very low management costs and are labour intensive, while large farms are either heavily mechanized - offering fewer employment opportunities - or have high costs for managing the workforce.

Today, most of the world’s small farmers are poor. Many do not grow enough food to feed themselves and their families, never mind their communities.

But experience repeatedly shows – here in China, in Ghana, in Viet Nam and elsewhere – that when smallholders are given the means and the incentives to increase production, they can lead agricultural and economic growth. 

Working in partnership

For more than 30 years, IFAD has been exclusively focused on agricultural and rural development. As a result of our consistent work in developing countries around the world – including Africa, Asia, the Latin America – we have accumulated experience and knowledge of what works, and how to tailor projects to the specific conditions of each country.

But we know that if we were to work on our own, there is little we would achieve. Partnerships have always been central to IFAD’s business model. IFAD itself was born out of a partnership between the OECD, OPEC, and developing countries, and has continued to improve upon that partnership model ever since.

Each one of the projects IFAD supports is implemented by grassroots institutions and organisations of small farmers, as well as government and national institutions, all as partners, contributing to their own development.

It is a most welcome fact  that China has been a valuable partner for IFAD in addressing global food security and poverty reduction.

As a development partner and as a recipient of development assistance, China brings a unique perspective on the development process.

And many of China’s agricultural policies and technologies can be of value for smallholder farmers elsewhere in Asia and in Africa. In particular policies related to promoting targeted investments in the modernisation of smallholder agriculture and the development of agricultural value chains in a changing environment and evolving market conditions.

Indeed China, along with other Middle Income Countries, is playing an increasingly important role in the international development scene, as a donor, as a trading partner, and as a source of expertise, and an incubator for innovative ideas in rural development.

In Madagascar, for example, Chinese experts helped with a hybrid rice development and demonstration centre where 34 strains of Chinese hybrid rice were grown. The average per-hectare yield was two to three times higher than the average output of local rice.

IFAD has a comparative advantage in facilitating and orchestrating a broad response to the key issues facing smallholders and poor rural people, and mobilizing cofinancing for rural development programmes.

In China, for example, IFAD makes it easier for the government to pursue its goal of investing more in the development of the remote mountainous and hilly rural areas in the central and western provinces. These areas   are, for the most part, populated by poor rural populations, smallholder farmers, and ethnic minorities. These development activities have helped redress social inequity, and stemming the tide of migration to urban areas.

It is in this area, in particular, that IFAD will focus in the future, working more closely with our member countries to develop a South-South cooperation strategy, while continuing to mainstream South-South cooperation into our programme of work.

IFAD’s vision

Let me share with you some of the main elements of IFAD’s vision of rural development.

The first is that, when we talk about working in partnership, we must not overlook poor rural people themselves.

IFAD has long recognized that development cannot be effective if it treats poor people as victims, in need of charity and endless handouts. But when poor people are seen and treated as the productive resources they are, and when they are given a voice in development projects right from the start, they can be the agents of sustainable and lasting change and development.

The second element is that farming at any scale is a business, in need of clear linkages along the value chain, from production to processing, to marketing, and ultimately, to consumption. For today’s subsistence farmers to survive they will need to increase their productivity so that they can produce enough food to feed themselves with a surplus to bring to market, and eventually become savvy market players.

The third element is that we must place a special emphasis on young people. It is the young people of today who will have to feed the 9 billion of tomorrow.

We must invest in rural youth and we must invest in the rural space  – creating vibrant rural areas where young people can see an attractive future for themselves, a rural life where jobs are available, that has basic services and amenities, and where new farm and non-farm activities will form the foundations of a new rurality. 

In doing this, we will also stem the desire of young people to migrate to cities and further into the countries of the North, where a better life does not necessarily await them.

Conclusion

As we work together this week, and in the weeks and years to come, I hope that we will all benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience. This means not just sharing the details of our successes, but also of our failures so that others are able to learn from them and not repeat the same  mistakes.

China’s commitment to share its experience and expertise through South-South cooperation with other developing countries is cause for felicitations and optimism.

South-South cooperation is an invaluable complement to North-South cooperation. Countries that are at similar levels of development that share similar philosophies of development are particularly well placed to help each other. South-South cooperation is undoubtedly a significant basis for partnership among developing countries.

Cooperative ventures can have huge benefits for emerging and developing economies alike. 

And as we listen to each other and share our experiences over the coming days, let us not lose sight of the fact that agriculture and rural development is not just about food security. It is a pathway to wealth creation and economic growth. It is a basis for social cohesions. It is a source of employment. It is a foundation for political stability and a precursor for global peace and security.

By working together to achieve food security, step-by-step, in every one of our countries, we will move closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and, ultimately a world without hunger or poverty.

Beijing, 21 July 2011