T.M. Radha: “A gradual process”

With a population of over a billion and persistent poverty levels, government efforts in India are focusing mainly on the eradication of poverty and growth.

However, as India is already facing the impacts of climate change, more prominently on the livelihoods and health of the people, the efforts towards “greening” the economy are gaining significance.

Water conservation, renewable energy, converting waste into energy and protecting land from degradation are some of the priority areas. In countries like India, with a huge population, any investment is expected to generate local employment.

Heavy investments are being made in the name of a “green economy”, especially in the private sector. Yet, many fear that those “greening” the economy may end up controlling it completely, leaving local people clueless and unable to access the benefits.

But India has another side too. For thousands of years it has been a land of recycling and resource conservation. Nothing is wasted, everything is re-used or recycled. Traditional Indian agriculture is the best example of this principle. Living simply is also part of the culture, even if this has been seriously affected by exposure to western cultures and domestic commercial interests. So most efforts only require “going back” to traditional cultures and practices.

According to T.M. Radha,  “a ‘green economy’ driven by a prescriptive global development model may not be viable for a country like India. We can only be green if we follow our own development priorities. In developing countries like ours, the transition to a ‘green economy’ is essentially a gradual and a time consuming process.”

Anthony Mugo: “It needs to make economic sense to ordinary Kenyans”

Talk of a “green economy” is popular within the private and public sectors in Kenya – even though the resources to raise public awareness are scarce. Anthony Mugo, deputy director at ALIN, says that Kenya needs to “engage developed countries to put in the resources needed so that poorer countries can develop along the low carbon path.”

But, it is even more important to recognise that a truly “green economy” can only be viable if the public is conscious of what it means. “Discussions on ‘greening the economy’ should focus on ‘green’ options that make economic sense to the ordinary Kenyans.”

The private sector in Kenya is promoting environmentally friendly practices; many non-state actors are promoting the adoption of alternative energy sources, and the government has taken steps to monitor the environment. Since climate change is already having a negative impact on Kenya’s economic sectors (such as agriculture, or wildlife and tourism), the government is calling for a sustained national effort to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

The Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources is also developing an action plan for implementing the National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS). According to the NCCRS, the adoption of low-carbon production practices is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.

These practices, in the same way as the carbon market, can increase incomes and help mitigate climate change. However, some government intervention is needed to help citizens understand and take advantage of them.

Teresa Gianella: “Our large social differences need first to be reduced”

In Peru today, large capital investments in extractive industries (such as mining) are the main reason behind the pollution of soils and water, and therefore behind the conflicts and social unrest seen in some parts of the country.

In the Andes, there is still a very high prevalence of poverty in rural areas; it is in these areas where the impacts of these industries are the most controversial. On the one hand, they are not “green” enough; on the other, they provide the financial resources needed for infrastructure and social services. Defining and adopting clear standards can be one way to avoid conflict. Yet, the concept of a “green economy” should not only be applied to largescale enterprises.

Teresa Gianella, editor of LEISA revista de agroecología, thinks that “greening” the economy should also consider smallscale agriculture and the less privileged sectors of society: “Peru’s large social differences need first to be reduced”. A “green economy” approach should build on the agro-ecological approach to producing food, respecting the rights of peasants and indigenous communities to land and territory, as well as to water and other natural resources.

Two newly created ministries (for Environment and Social Inclusion) give some hope for the future, as do the current debates concerning the country’s economic development and rural people’s rights to natural resources.

A necessary first step is to establish a communication strategy aimed at increasing awareness among rural and urban consumers, as well as policy makers, of the importance and potential of an alternative model.

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Communication is crucial in human interactions. The use of social media has become widespread, especially among young people. Modern communication tools can also be used to make agriculture more appealing and more effective.

Though neglected for a long time, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are now seen as an important tool for development, especially in Africa. There are many available options, and different factors need to be considered in selecting the most appropriate and effective tool or medium for communication.

According to Francois Laureys, the West Africa Programme Manager at the International Institute of Communication for Development (IICD), the most important factor is the type of information to be sent out: “In Africa, radio is still the cheapest and most efficient tool for spreading messages about a broad range of issues, like farming, democracy or lifestyle. By building in feedback-loops via the internet or telephone, it can also offer two-way communication.”

Using ICTs in farming, for example for spreading information about practices and market prices for agricultural products, requires other tools like mobile phones or computers. But in many parts of Africa, mobile phones are not (yet) widely used to support farming: most farmers who have mobile phones only use them as a social communication tool. Part of the problem is that there are still practical problems in the use of ICTs on a large scale: large areas of the continent are still not connected, and the communication costs are very high: an average person in Africa pays (relatively) ten times more for mobile communication than somebody in Europe. Practical ICT applications for farming are still limited. And illiteracy is still widespread, especially among the elder generation, which limits the full use of digital ICTs. But, according to Mr Laureys, there is a huge potential for using visual multimedia, such as video and photography, for training and learning about agriculture.

Container knowledge

ILEIA’s Kenyan partner in the AgriCultures Network, the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN), has been promoting Maarifa centres (Kiswahili for “knowledge”) for the last five years. These are housed in recycled sea containers that have internet access and where the staff provides different services. They serve as valuable information hubs in remote areas, helping provide farmers and pastoralists with information on new agriculture and animal husbandry technologies, promoting their adoption and thereby improving the livelihoods of poor communities.

A typical Maarifa centre contains a small library of publications, CD ROMs, videos, DVDs, and five or more computers with broadband internet connectivity. Each Maarifa centre is managed by a field officer, a young woman or man with interest and training in information management of agriculture.

A young volunteer from the community, known as a Community Knowledge Facilitator (CKF), supports the field officer in running the centre. One key task is to ensure that everybody who visits the centre is well served, irrespective of their level of literacy. Although open to all villagers, the Maarifa centres make special efforts to engage the youth in learning about and using ICTs to search for agricultural information and for their broader communication needs.

The establishment of a Maarifa Centre is celebrated with an open day, bringing together the neighbouring communities, including representatives from the local government departments and civil organisations, community groups, schools, and the general public. An advisory committee, formed by the local community, co-ordinates the outreach activities around each centre, and each centre has a community focal group attached to it. This group will include some infomediaries with some expertise in extension. They are instrumental in supporting the field officers to package the information so that it is accessible to farmers. There are currently fourteen Maarifa centres; eight in Kenya, four in Uganda and two in Tanzania. Three of the centres in Uganda have only recently been opened, near the towns of Gulu and Moyo. In February 2011 one additional centre started near the Kenyan town of Elwak.

Information experts

John Njue is the field officer at the Maarifa Centre at Kyuso, a dry part of eastern Kenya, where the centre “acts as a referral point for people interested in developmental content. The district does not have any community library and therefore students of agribusiness, crop production and horticulture come to the centre for reference.” One of his tasks, after learning users’ information needs, “is to repackage the available information. In November 2010, for example, many farmers sought information on indigenous poultry keeping after weather anomalies related to La Niña were predicted. Many young people wanted to raise poultry as an alternative farming enterprise”. A year earlier, he helped many of the farmers who came to the centre looking for information on non-chemical pest management. Many women also come to the Maarifa centre: given the time constraints they face, many prefer to borrow i-Pods, with which they watch best practices carried out in other areas.

But John Njue is not directly involved in any agricultural enterprise. “I admire farming, but not the kind our forefathers practised. The reason why I don’t farm is because my parents and neighbours would not listen to my views about the need to practice more modern farming techniques, and trying to farm as a business.” According to him, most young people don’t engage in agriculture because of a lack of support from the people around them. He feels that it would be beneficial if the government employed young agricultural extension officers. This would make it easier to communicate to young farmers and help them start an agricultural business, rather than continuing to see and practice farming as a subsistence activity. He also observes that many extension officers do not use modern technologies in their training, and thinks that this is a deterrent to youth participation.

Samuel Nzioka is the newly appointed field officer at the Maarifa Centre in Nguruman, a very remote village in the south of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province. He has a BSc degree in agriculture and strongly believes that ICTs can help promote agricultural production: “ICTs can be used to document what the farmers are doing in one region. This information can be shared through CD ROMs, short videos and pictures.”He is also positive about Sokopepe, an application piloted by ALIN in order to “link farmers and agri-cultural commodities through an online mobile phone and an internet based marketing portal”. A youth group in Nguruman was trained in the use of ICTs and have developed their own blog through which they’re able to share what they are doing.

ICTs for organisation

ICT heroes, busy internet women
 
Estelle Akofio-Sowah is Google’s country manager in Ghana. She attended the “Fill the Gap” conference organised by Hivos and IICD in Amsterdam in January, where she said that smart phones will soon be the main source of internet access in Africa.
 
Mobile phones are already very significant communication tools, and prices for third generation digital technology are expected to drop significantly. But online content still needs to be developed. So there is much work for African web developers in making online services relevant to the local context and language.
 
Internet offers many opportunities for women, she says, especially for those who overcome their fears about technology and who dare to use their “natural flair” in this male-dominated sector. She highlighted the work of two heroines of the African digital world, Esi Cleland and Florence Toffa, whose work is helping AFROCHIC and the Word Wide Web Foundation reach their objectives.

Samuel Nzioka thinks that there are a number of ways in which agriculture could be made far more appealing to young people: by giving them grants to help them start farming; by linking them with markets for agricultural produce; by setting up local processing plants for value-addition and employment; by training them on best farming practices to achieve higher yields and by organising exchange-visits to learn from others. ICTs can be useful in all these cases.

Francois Laureys has seen the effects in Mali, where IICD supported a women’s association for producing and marketing shea butter. Three computers, some solar panels, two photo-cameras and one video-camera permitted the women to present their products on a website. The use of computers, coupled with management and marketing tools, helped raise production levels and improved sales and revenues. The women also managed to strengthen their organisation, with better accountancy procedures and reports.

But Mr Laureys also warns against too much optimism: “Having a website and being provided with market information is not enough to help the individual farmer get out of the poverty trap. A certain level of organisation is needed.” That’s why better results are seen when working with farmers’ associations and interest groups. The shea butter womens’ organisation has shown many positive results in Mali, and the Maarifa centres are playing an important role in strengthening and connecting rural organisations in remote areas of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. More than other villagers, young people are contributing to this.

Text: Anthony Mugo and Mireille Vermeulen

Anthony Mugo works as Programme Manager at the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN). Mireille Vermeulen is part of the Farming Matters editorial team.

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Paulo Petersen: “No benefits go to farmers”

farmers must find other ways to access markets, preferably through short chains

Over the past decade, Brazil has become one of the world leaders in agricultural production and trade, satisfying the country’s needs in almost all sectors while exporting approximately 25 percent of its produce. Paulo Petersen, Director of our partner organisation AS-PTA, points out that, in spite of the large quantities of foodstuffs produced, neither policy makers nor farmers have any influence on the prices paid. ‘‘International markets define the price of food. It is influenced by global issues, and is not regulated by individual countries. What farmers are paid depends basically on the international market prices.”

This is because most farmers, even those in the remote rural areas of Brazil, are part of an international value chain. The biggest problem is that these chains include many intermediaries. “They are the ones who appropriate the riches produced by agriculture in Brazil. Although prices may fluctuate and farmers lose out when they fall, they also lose out when they rise.” Farmers must therefore try to find other ways to access markets, preferably through short chains. This means paying attention to local markets. Selling in local markets helps reduce the number of intermediaries, which means that a larger percentage of the price paid by the consumer goes to the producer. Local markets also provide opportunities for commercialising a wider diversity of products. Additional benefits can also be found by lowering costs. “This is not impossible: lowering costs while maintaining or increasing production levels is one of the many advantages of an agro-ecological approach”.

Anthony Mugo: “A burden on rural taxpayers”

farmers face numerous barriers when trying to access the market

Countries like Kenya import much of the food the population consumes, particularly grains and edible oil, and are even more reliant on imports when the rains are insufficient or other factors affect production. Higher global food prices mean that more money is spent on importing food, resulting in a higher burden on Kenyan taxpayers, most of whom (approximately 70 percent) live in rural areas. Ideally, higher food prices should also mean a better income for poor farmers in rural areas, but unfortunately this is rarely the case. Farmers face numerous barriers when trying to access the market: poor infrastructure and a general lack of market information leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen, or by those who have the means to transport food to urban areas.

According to Anthony Mugo, Programme Director of the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN), ICTs offer a possible solution. ALIN is promoting an online market access portal known as Sokopepe (the virtual marketplace – www.sokopepe.co.ke), which can link farmers with the national market via mobile phones and the internet. This can help to better inform farmers about where and when to sell their produce.

Qian Jie: “The intermediaries benefit”

even when consumers pay more for their products, the farmers still do not benefit

Over the past few years, China has become increasingly involved in the trade of agricultural products, both as exporter and importer. But these growing linkages with international markets are not necessarily beneficial for the country’s smallscale farmers.

The Director of CBIK, Qian Jie, says that when food prices rise, the costs increase – something that also happens when prices fall in the international markets. “Rising food prices also mean that the inputs which farmers need are more expensive. So when prices rise, the farmers’ net income is smaller”.

As part of their efforts to tackle the current financial crisis, the Chinese government is providing subsidies to consumer groups in the cities, some of which are known as the “Fair Price Vegetable Groups”. These subsidies help urban consumers buy more expensive products, yet the benefits of these transactions never reach the producers: “Even when consumers pay more for their products, the farmers still do not benefit.” As in many other countries, the presence of many intermediaries plays a very important role in this as they are able to overcome the transport and information barriers that face rural farmers. Helping such farmers access the market is increasingly recognised as the best way to increase their profits, but this will mean implementing specific support policies.

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