Tag Archives: G20

Smallholder Farmers Will Feed The World

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Earlier today I presented a keynote speech at the World Food Prize 2012 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa. I’d like to share with you some of what I had to say about smallholder farmers and the important role they must play in feeding the world. 

Today, our fragile and beautiful Earth is home to seven billion people. Over the next 30 years, two, maybe three billion more will join us. The global food system is struggling. Food prices peaked in 2008 and peaked again a few months ago, sparking riots and export bans. Land grabs, increasing oil prices, biofuel development, food production and distribution failures, disturbing water shortages are converging and reshaping our world and the very character of poverty and hunger.

All these forces are contributing to the distressing spike in malnutrition and poverty around the world.

The world needs smallholder farmers

Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

But to the good, the G8, G2O, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum and others have rediscovered the critical importance of agriculture and are all promising—through public-private partnerships—to do more for smallholder farmers. We laud these decisions—smallholder farmers are the best change agents we have to help feed this hungry world. Let me explain.

Heifer International is helping lead what has been called the livestock revolution. We are working to reach a rapidly growing group of smallholder farmers, mostly women, to inspire agroecological productivity, biodiversity, financial security and health to create the surplus needed to feed the world.

There are 650 million smallholder farmers in the world and 50 to 80 percent of them are women! They grow the majority of the food eaten every day. By doubling their productivity, they can help feed the world. And we will need these 300+ million women to feed us all.

Smallholder farmers in Zambia

Smallholder farmers will feed the world, but only if we help. Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Along with this, we need to take advantage of new plant technologies, and spread as rapidly as possible best practices, which can double or triple yields. We also need more and better public-private partnerships to advance agriculture to help meet global needs in food security. They can open access to finance and technology and link smallholders to markets. By combining strengths, partners can all make better progress than by working on their own.

By using the greatest asset in agricultural development—the smallholder farmer—along with the best seeds, the best plants, judicious use of a range of fertilizers and wise husbandry, we can increase yields by factors of three or four. Also, rethinking subsidies for biofuel could free up vast acreage for human food production, which we know we need.

Overcoming these challenges will require new thinking, new collaborations, new openness … understanding that all successful agricultural public-private partnerships should lead to win-win situations that benefit farmers. Recent studies suggest that improvements in national incomes tied to agricultural growth have been underestimated. In truth, few countries have achieved increased prosperity without equivalent growth in agriculture.

So, what does that mean? It means that successful poverty elimination utilizes market-driven development and depends strongly on deeply embedded social engagement.

But let’s be clear on one thing—something we learned at Heifer International a long time ago: Economic growth and community development cannot be separated. They must go hand in hand.

Come back to the Heifer Blog tomorrow to learn more about how economic and community development must be done together.

G20 Report Receives Mixed Reviews

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We shared last week about the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated how higher agriculture commodity prices are here to stay.  Global warming has already raised food prices by as much as 20% and the global price for a basket of basic food is still 37% higher than it was this time last year.

After a two-day meeting, the G20 released their Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture. Though this was the first time the agriculture ministers of the group have held a summit, reactions seem mixed but all have the same tone.
Below are some of the readings breaking down the G20’s action plan and discussing how this will have a global impact.
IRIN Global – FOOD: G20 not biting off more than they can chew
Guardian.co.uk – G20 agriculture ministers dodge the big questions on food prices  
UN News Centre – UN agency welcomes G20 decisions aimed at boosting food security
AFP – G20 grapples with speculation, food security
You can read the G20’s report here, and let us know in the comments what your thoughts are regarding their plan. One step forward or two steps back?

Save the Farmer, Save the World?

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We discussed last week that rising food prices will have a direct impact on American consumers and developing countries around the world; now it seems that farmers and those who work in agriculture are weighing in on the topic. An international group of farm unions, which is comprised of farm groups from Europe, Asia and North America, issued a statement on Monday to the G20 stating that the trade rules will threaten food security. The group defended the use of trade tariffs and production quotas by countries to secure food supplies and stabilize prices.
Agriculture will be a trending topic at the G20 conference in Paris starting on Wednesday. Though the G20 is supposedly not going to support the farm unions’ call, it does raise the question: What about the farmers? 
Since 2008, after the dramatic spike in world food prices, agriculture and food security have been issues of concern for countries across continents. The latest data states that by 2050 we will have a global population of 9 billion people.
Wheat farmer Robert Carlson, head of the North Dakota Farmers Union, said, “What we have become interested in, in the United States, is this question of are we really in a new era now when, instead of dealing all the time with how to get rid of the surpluses, the challenge is going to be grow enough food for the world?”
To discuss how agriculture roles are changing, FAO has created a policymaker’s guide to the sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production titled, Save and grow. This guide discusses the challenge of feeding a growing world population, farming systems, soil health, crops and varieties, water management, plant protection and policies and institutions.
The challenges that farmers will face in the next few years are evident. Small-scale farming has been effective in Heifer’s work to bring communities out of hunger. We teach our project partners environmentally sound farming methods through agroecology. We define agroecology as, “the sustainable use and management of natural resources, accomplished by using social, cultural, economic, political and ecological methods that work together to achieve sustainable agriculture production.”
  
Though we won’t know the results from the G20 meeting for the next couple of days, it’s a good sign when everyone can identify the same problem and begins to work towards a solution.