Stop ignoring small-scale farmers

Its necessary for policymakers, international trade agencies, to take agro-ecological approach to farming seriously

Although urbanisation is on the rise, around 75 per cent of the world’s poorest people still live in rural areas, and are involved in agricultural activities, which comprise the major source of their livelihoods. The need to pay more attention to small-scale farmers is thus evident.

However, in the era of globalisation, contending with problems facing small-scale farmers across the so-called developing world requires cognisance of production relations at not only the national, but also at the international level. The reliance on larger farmers to help boost agricultural production in developing countries, combined with the emphasis on liberalisation of agricultural processes through powerful entities like the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank have been undermining locally-based, agro-ecological approaches towards farming since decades.

Consider, for instance, how the introduction of ‘Green Revolution’ technologies back in the 1960s tried addressing the problem of lacklustre agricultural growth by investing in high-yielding varieties of food grain and focusing on larger farmers, who had the money to buy the necessary agricultural inputs. Smaller landowners could not keep pace with the high-cost requirements of intensive farming, and many of them began to lease their land out to capitalist producers with the economic resources to do so. Due to mechanisation of agriculture, such as the increasing use of tractors, smaller farmers, especially sharecroppers, began to be evicted from the farming sector.

The dynamics of agribusiness and corporate farming being emphasised across developing countries nowadays are no different, since they are exacerbating agricultural land scarcity for smaller farmers, and their capital-intensive approach to agricultural production provides meagre employment opportunities to the rural workforce, except for rural women who are compelled to work for meagre daily wages, as their menfolk migrate to cities in search for other work.

Shifting the predominant agricultural production model towards more ecological approaches would also imply abandoning conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production. Such a shift would be challenged by powerful vested interests within both developing and developed countries. But the looming threat of climate change, including water scarcity and recurrent bouts of food insecurity, necessitate transformative changes in the global agricultural system.

The Trade and Environment Review Report published over a year ago by the UN’s Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), including contributions from more than 60 experts around the world, convincingly argued for such a shift.

Some of the relevant practices identified by UNCTAD experts to encourage more sustainable agricultural process included more emphasis on organic farming, better integration between crop and livestock production, and increased incorporation of agro-forestry and wild vegetation within agricultural policies and forest and grassland management. There is also need for optimisation of organic and inorganic fertiliser use, and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of livestock production, in turn requiring changes in dietary patterns towards climate-friendly food consumption.

Adoption of sustainable and regenerative agricultural production systems, suited to diverse rural settings, will also considerably help improve the existing productive capacity of small-scale farmers. Unfortunately, there is little evidence of such changes taking place.

It is necessary for national policymakers, as well as the international trade and development agencies, to begin taking agro-ecological approaches towards farming more seriously. Sporadic NGO efforts to encourage more sustainable agricultural practices will not be able to achieve the scale needed to make any real difference.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th,  2015.

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