Release number IFAD/29/08

Rome, 21 May 2008 – Policies to help small family farms in developing countries must be at the heart of the global response to high food prices if food security in poor countries is to improve in the long-term, said the International Fund for Agricultural Development(IFAD).

“We are seeing a tremendous new boost of planting in OECD and other advanced agricultural producing countries,” said IFAD President Lennart Båge.

“Sooner or later, the supply response at the global level will ease the current crisis. But we cannot wish away the two billion people whose livelihoods depend on the 450 million smallholder farms across the world.  

With their families, they account for a third of the world’s population,” he said.

“If we forget them, we actually may get a situation where, while meeting the world’s immediate supply targets, we wind up with an even greater imbalance in the global supply system and greater food insecurity”.

Båge said that whilst emergency food assistance is required, as are seed and fertiliser inputs to ensure higher productive output for the coming harvests, “we must not forget medium and long-term investment in policies, institutions, productivity, irrigation and soil fertility”.

“If you look only at the medium emergency, you undermine the long-term solution – and you get more food aid dependency” he said.

Smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America with just a few hectares of land have been largely unable to reap any benefit from high prices due to soaring seed, fertiliser and transport costs.

Until recently, they were seen as a poverty problem. But in reality, smallholder farmers are a vital global asset, a key factor for increased food production, economic growth and development and for climate change,” Båge said in an interview with the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development.

Three quarters of the world’s poorest people living on less than one US dollar a day live in rural areas in developing countries and 85% of the world’s farms are of less than two hectares in size.

Heads of State or Government and Ministers dealing with agriculture, livestock, forestry, fisheries, water, energy and environment are gathering in Rome on June 3-5 for a UN High-Level Conference on World Food Security to be organised by IFAD’s UN sister agency the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

IFAD recently announced it was making $US200 million available for seeds and fertilisers for farmers in those countries and regions most badly hit by high food prices so they can increase production for the next harvest.

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IFAD was created 30 years ago to tackle rural poverty, a key consequence of the droughts and famines of the early 1970s. Since 1978, IFAD has invested more than US$10 billion in low-interest loans and grants that have helped over 300 million very poor rural women and men increase their incomes and provide for their families.
IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is a global partnership of OECD, OPEC and other developing countries. Today, IFAD supports more than 200 programmes and projects in 81 developing countries and one territory.