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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Next to his work at the Millennium Institute, Mr Herren is co-chair of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). The publication of “Agriculture at a Crossroads” in 2008 sought to bring about real change in policies for agriculture and development. Fifty-nine countries have endorsed the report and many other states and organisations have noted the importance of the assessment.

The report pictures possible scenarios, looks clearly at policy and institutional issues, and provides decision makers with a range of options for action. It has a great potential – but things have been quiet in the past two years.

Q: What happened with the IAASTD report?

A: My big disappointment was that after the report was finished and the plenary in Johannesburg in 2008 was over, there was no money left for a good PR and media launch, not even to promote it among international bodies, governments, research institutes and donor organisations. I am trying to promote IAASTD through my own activities and those of my foundation (www.biovision.ch). Fortunately, some of the report’s authors and supporters have also taken up promoting the report and see the need for a next step.

Yet at the same time the International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is being seen as an alternative to IAASTD, something with which I don’t agree. It has taken us a long time to get agriculture recognised as the key issue in international development. With the IAASTD we managed to put it back on the agenda; now we need to do even more.

Q: What is the status of agriculture on the international agenda at this moment?

A: Agriculture is still at a crossroads, very little has happened at any government level. Even countries which have endorsed the agreement are doing nothing. In England, for instance, Parliament endorsed the report, but it has done little to implement its findings. Instead it commissioned a new report, which came out with basically similar conclusions, but suggesting that GMOs may be needed to cope with food security issues in the future.

In the IAASTD report we specifically wrote that genetic engineering has not yet solved any problem in agriculture and food security, that research is needed on its health and ecological impacts, and that this should not be at the expense of research, extension and the implementation of sustainable and organic farming.

Q: Why is it so difficult to change anything here?

A: Governments are under pressure from the U.S., Canada and Australia, who did not endorse the agreement because of their views on trade and GM crops. These three countries are major donors and they have a large influence on the development agenda. Another reason is the pressure from the private sector and some large private foundations. Companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer raise the sceptre of unemployment and hunger to get support for their GM technologies. But there is also a general problem that people do not understand: the potential of sustainable agriculture to solve food security problems.

Many policy makers have been led to believe that sustainable or ecological agriculture will not be productive enough to nourish the world. But experiences from the field, published in peerreviewed journals, show increases in production by a factor of two and more after a transition to sustainable, ecological or organic agriculture.

Q: Should politics not play a more important role then?

A: I have become more and more convinced that we cannot count on politicians or politics to make the decisions that will bring about the needed changes in consumption patterns and the way we do agriculture. There are too many lobbies out there, and politicians always put the need to be re-elected ahead of the common good. They don’t dare to take unpopular decisions today that would make the world a better place tomorrow. Against my earlier thinking, some private sector companies and people may be the best option for leading change.

We need to find out who these people are and what companies they lead, and then work with them. It is a big job to inform them about the findings of the IAASTD report, so this is why it is important that the IAASTD process continues. We also need to include a much broader range of stakeholders and work with groups of people who can see the broad range of problems and help to solve them.

The way forward with IAASTD may be to set up a permanent panel like the IPCC, to inform the public, politicians and the private sector about policies for food security and sovereignty.

Q: Where should we start?

A: We keep on measuring CO2 levels and these are going up, no matter what we do. Even if we would stop driving cars today, this will continue, and the consequences will be quite dramatic. But we keep on talking, referring to new reports, organising new meetings, and the CO2 levels keep on rising. Sustainable agricultural practices could absorb a third or more of the CO2, instead of being a source of emissions. One way to change that is to reward sustainable farmers for the positive externalities they create, rather than charging them with extra labelling costs.

Globally, some 800 million dollars every day is spent on direct and indirect subsidies for farmers in developed countries. These subsidies promote cheap food and enormous waste (up 60 % from production to consumption) along the value chain. It is time to sell food at the true cost that includes the externalities and, where necessary, assist the poorer segments of the population with something like food stamps. This would make industrial food more expensive and sustainably produced food cheaper.

Q: Don’t we just need more food for a growing world population?

A: The fact is that we have to change our lifestyles, and that’s tough news. We keep driving on in our SUVs, we keep on over-consuming cheap meat, and every year we listen to the experts say that economy and technology will fix these problems. This is the general mindset. But will it? I don’t think so, and many others agree. We have reached the ecological limits and need now to reconsider the way we produce and consume food and other products.

When it comes to food production we know exactly what to do: transform 1.5 billion hectares into agroecological farming and increase the rate of change with factor 37, and then it can all be sustainable by 2050.Today we produce 4,600 calories per person per day. That’s already enough to feed the highest estimates of 12 billion people predicted to be on this planet then.

Q: But is that really possible?

A: The potential is enormous. We can produce more rice with less water, using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). We can use methods like push-and-pull, intercropping maize with repellent plants which “pull” the insects. We need to put life into the soil again, and have at least five or six different crops in rotation. It’s also about having animals back on the farm and using the manure well.

These agronomic options are in line with our requirements and needs for food security. It’s not a bleak picture. We all want a better, healthier and more rewarding life. But the Gates Foundation, for example, is still pushing for a Green Revolution with more fertilizers, more hybrid seeds and more dependency, while ignoring local solutions that have shown great impact.

Q: What’s the role of youth in this?

A: We need to take them on board in our search for a better future, for they are the producers and consumers of tomorrow. It’s their world that is at stake and they are concerned. Youth have to be involved and empowered so they can really do something.

The IAASTD report is based on information collected in 2006-2008 and was published in 2008. It is already getting old. So we want to publish new material and we need a new assessment in a couple of years. This time we need to try to involve the next generation of policy makers. We could have a competition at universities to find the best solutions and to choose the best reports. You have to be a bit more creative to attract young people, but they are interested as we are talking about their future. In the last assessment procedure, I also tried to convince the IAASTD Director to involve film schools on every continent by asking them to produce a short film about crucial sustainability issues at a local level. That would have provided wonderful PR material, but it didn’t work out for lack of funds.

In the next phase of the IAASTD we really have to make better use of the media, in particular the new social media such as Facebook and Twitter. As we prepare to take the IAASTD process to the Rio+20 meeting and assure that sustainable agriculture will be high on the agenda, the importance of youth participation cannot be over-emphasised.

Interview: Mireille Vermeulen

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Steff Deprez was working with VECO Indonesia when he was asked in 2007 to work out a new planning system with his team. What followed was an intensive year of researching and experimenting, for which he relied on Outcome Mapping, a planning and evaluation approach developed by the International Development Research Centre in Canada as an alternative to the often used Logical Framework.

Outcome Mapping starts by examining what actors within a certain sector or value chain do, and what do they wish to change. “Outcome mapping is another way of looking, based on a different theory of change,” says Deprez, “but that is not enough to make it work.

You can only achieve intended changes with a good learning and monitoring system. So we also developed a new planning, learning and accountability (PLA) system for developing sustainable agriculture chains.”

Information with a purpose

A key feature of the PLA system is that it creates an organisational space so that farmers, other partners in a value chain and VECO get together on a regular basis and discuss what has been done, share experiences, evaluate the effectiveness of their activities and take decisions for the future.

These chain meetings are well structured in terms of gathering information and sense making. “Instead of collecting a lot of data to satisfy donors, we wanted information for steering the joint programme”, explains Deprez, “and a shared report containing the output of these bi-annual chain meetings gives us more valuable information than all those 50-page partner reports”.

Not every organisation is used, or equipped, to deal with this kind of planning and reporting, so, under the new system, VECO partners are free to use their own reporting formats internally. VECO takes responsibility for translating the PLA system reports into the language or format preferred by donors.

Clarity

After a few chain meetings, partners became acquainted with the process. Adopting PLA has improved the relationship between VECO Indonesia and its partners, as it demands more clarity about the roles of all those involved. As one of the NGO partners said in relation to their experience with Outcome Mapping and the PLA system, “The new programme framework made it easier for us to see the focus of the programme. Our roles as local NGOs were spelt out, and our goals became more specific and focused.”

How to PLAn outcomes
 
The Planning, Learning and Accountability (PLA) system is a learning-oriented monitoring and evaluation system that provides a framework for systematic data collection, interpretation and documentation. It consists of well-defined procedures, reporting formats and keeping a detailed annual calendar.
 
The actions of all the partners within the value chain are central to the learning and monitoring process. In the agricultural value chain programme these partners are local service-providing NGOs, farmer or producer organisations and private chain actors. These partners all agree on the desired changes in behaviour, relationships and activities that will contribute to the objective of the programme, and they jointly set indicators for achieving these. During the bi-annual chain meetings each partner tells the others about what they have been doing, the intentions and the results achieved. The partners jointly evaluate the activities, share information, discuss roles and agree on joint interventions. The minutes of these meetings form the basis of a shared report from VECO and its partners. The meetings last for two or three days.
 
The theory behind Outcome Mapping rests on the idea that monitoring and evaluation should be focused on the level of partners’ activities (their sphere of influence). But VECO also wants to monitor changes in the value chain (the sphere of interest) in order to understand the impact of the programme, the effectiveness of the support it provides to partners and its internal organisational practices (the sphere of control).

It made all partners more aware of their own roles and responsibilities, and also gave them a new perspective on what they were doing. According to a VECO Indonesia staff member, “Under the old way of doing things, if they (our partners) did not achieve the planned outputs, it would mean they had failed. Now they can still show progress, and this has encouraged them to speak more openly with us about their weaknesses.”

Flexibility

According to Steff Deprez, the best thing about PLA is that it permits real learning: “We now gather information for what it is meant for: to make sense of it, to learn and to adapt plans. It gives us all more flexibility.”

Deprez admits that it is merely a question of “sitting down and asking the right questions. You can do that in every organisation or style of management. But often monitoring is lacking or inadequate, and then projects fall back on the basics of the original framework. That makes reporting more like filling in boxes, while reality is more complex.”

The process of learning and monitoring that VECO has developed and implemented is still fragile: it requires continuous investment and being alert to make it work. Participative tools and knowledge about facilitation need to be regularly reviewed; people’s capacities need to be strengthened, the organisation and management needs to stay fully committed. But, as with all partnerships for learning, it is challenging and worthwhile. This is clear to all those involved.

Text: Mireille Vermeulen

Photos: We now gather information to make sense of it, to learn and to adapt plans.” By: Steff Deprez

More Information
Steff Deprez currently works as Coordinator for Planning, Learning & Accountability at the Vredeseilanden head office in Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: steff.deprez@vredeseilanden.be

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Anuradha Mittal – A recent report from the Oakland Institute shows the important role that the World Bank and its institutions have played in the processes of land acquisition (or land grabs) recently experienced in many countries. In an interview with Farming Matters, its executive director, Anuradha Mittal, questions the role of such institutions and calls for policies which focus on food sovereignty.

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La Cabrita is a real family farm. Guicella Igreda Lix (40) and her father Don Manuel (80) manage the goat breeding and forage cultivation together.

Guicella’s mother, brother and two sisters are responsible for pigs, poultry and the dairy and cheese plant. La Cabrita’s products have gained international organic certification, a big success for a small farm of just 2.5 hectares on some rocky slopes in Cerro Puquio, in the arid coastal zone northeast of Lima, Peru.

When the family started in 1998, they had almost nothing and invested little by little. They managed to overcome, without any outside help, the theft of the capital from the sale of their house, but the fire at the dairy plant two years later was more difficult, as Guicella explains. “We had tried and succeeded building our farm without becoming dependant on others.

We didn’t want debts at the bank. But after the fire we were compelled to ask for a loan”. They got the loan, repayable over two years, from a local NGO with a microcredit programme. Guicella is positive about the NGO: “The interest rate is similar to commercial banks, but not the requirements. The NGO knows us and the way we work, they have confidence in us”.

The Igreda family doesn’t need larger loans though: “The stress of being in debt would make us forget the small things. We have a philosophy of slow growth, for us that is the crucial point of sustainability.”

Text: Mireille Vermeulen

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Politicians and policy-makers now frequently discuss the crucial role of agriculture in development. What will be the future of agriculture?

There are contrasting views about precisely what needs to be done, and the question is complex because many policy-makers seem to think that today, there is a trade-off between the various objectives that any agricultural policy must combine: improving levels of production and raising the revenues of small producers, while respecting the environment. There is also a clear schizophrenia within governments: while more market liberalisation is sometimes seen as a solution to encourage production, many realize on the other hand that this squeezes out the smallest and least competitive production units, which is exactly not what we want to achieve, as this increases inequality and poverty, and therefore hunger. In this context, a serious ideological battle is being fought. The problem, as I see it, is that large agribusiness corporations exercise a disproportionate influence on governments, while small farmers are not involved in most processes.

Then what is the relevance of all your high-level meetings for the lives of small farmers in Africa and Asia?

There is often a serious disconnection between the high-level officials I meet and the poor farmers, living in the most marginal areas. I see my role as trying to understand the needs of the most vulnerable, and ensuring that policy-makers are made sensitive to those needs and are more accountable. The right to food is about raising accountability. It’s based on the idea that you cannot work for the poor without the poor.

But what is the impact of high-level declarations to global developments in agriculture? Will they really convince governments to implement better policies?

There are important vested interests in the existing system, despite its failures: it has succeeded relatively well in raising production, but failed in addressing the root causes of hunger. Things can change, however. Two levers are important. First, through international meetings and the preparation of declarations, we can change the perception of governments about what needs to be done, and gradually arrive at a common diagnosis. Second, through improving accountability at the domestic level, particularly by encouraging countries to set up national strategies by participatory means and to establish consultative bodies, we can increase pressure on governments, and ensure that their efforts will be appropriately targeted to the needs of the most vulnerable. These tools should not be underestimated. Together, they can lead to real change.

During the last world summit on food security in November 2009 in Rome, the UN have called for a reform of the Committee on Food Security (CFS). What real impact can this reformed committee have for small farmers in the world?

It will be important to see how the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) will function, under its new composition and with its new role. During a second phase of its work, the CFS should adopt a global strategic framework – a plan of action at global level, identifying measures that governments and international agencies should take. It should set priorities and guide the work of development co-operation and investment in agriculture. This has the potential to improve the understanding of governments about what needs to be done to eradicate hunger and malnutrition, and of raising the accountability of all actors – donor governments, their partners in developing countries, and international agencies.

It also has the potential to improve co-ordination across different international agencies. For it is bizarre, to say the least, that within the World Trade Organisation, countries are pressured to relax the measures that protect their agricultural sector in the face of foreign competition, while at the same time they are told to support smallholders and to diminish their dependency on international markets to feed their populations.

“Large agribusiness corporations exercise a disproportionate influence on governments”

The CFS should ensure that these inconsistencies do not persist. All governments and international agencies (both from within the UN system as well as outside it, such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO) and also civil society and the private sector will have to justify their choices in the face of a shared diagnosis of the priorities. This can be significant. But whether or not real change will result, will depend on whether they in fact agree to subject themselves to this collective evaluation. Will they act co-operatively? Or will they continue to prioritise their national interests and ideological agendas? This is the real test for the future.

What should small farmers do to get their voices heard?

They must organise themselves! I am encouraged to see, for instance, how fast co-operatives of small farmers are developing. This means that small farmers improve their bargaining position and can improve their access to infrastructure or to public goods such as storage facilities, information about prices, or transport. It also means that they will find it easier to be heard at all levels, from the domestic to the international level. I am convinced that we would not have seen the mistakes of the past if small farmers’ organisations had been better involved in decision-making. I refer for instance to marketing boards that bought crops from farmers at very low prices either for export or to ensure low-priced food for the urban populations. But also the insistence on export-led agriculture in general, which has increased inequalities between larger, better-off producers and small farmers living on the most marginal lands. Farmers’ voices need to counterbalance the corporate sector in setting the agenda for agricultural and rural development.

Agriculture is affected by climate change, but also contributes to it. Livestockproduction has a big influence on the emission of greenhouse gases. Is this not a dilemma in promoting farming?

The increase in livestock production, in response to a growing demand for meat, tightens the competition for land between its various uses. Together, grazing land and cropland dedicated to the production of feed-crops and fodder already account for 70 percent of all agricultural land, or about 30 percent of the land surface of the planet. And in certain regions it is a major cause of deforestation or soil degradation, as a result of overgrazing. In a 2006 study called Livestock’s long shadow, the FAO noted that if we take into account deforestation as a result of the creation of pastures and production of crops for feed, livestock is responsible for 18 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions, almost double the share of transport.

Yet, at the same time, we must recognise that no two kilogrammes of meat are the same. Farm animals raised in industrialised countries consume more than five calories in feedstock for each calorie of meat or dairy food produced, and some estimates put that figure much higher, establishing a relationship of up to 17 units to one. But these figures represent the production of meat in rich countries, which is heavily industrialised, and it relates to animals fed on grains. In India, the ratio is a less than 1.5 to one. In Kenya, where animals are not fed grain but live off grass or agricultural by-products which humans cannot eat, livestock actually yield more calories than they consume. And it is equally important to acknowledge that livestock rearing represents a source of income for perhaps up to one billion people, representing one third of the poor in the rural areas.

In 2008, the IAASTD report on the world’s agriculture was published. You often urge governments to take this report more seriously, but even the extensive summary is difficult to read. Can we expect governments to use this report as an input in their agricultural policies?

The IAASTD is the result of a considerable amount of work, by some of the most renowned experts in the world. The obstacle its reception faces is that it calls for a paradigm shift in the way we conceive agricultural development and innovation, with a focus on the needs of the most vulnerable and on sustainable agriculture, away from the technological approaches of the past. We may need to break down the conclusions of IAASTD into parts, and treat separately those that relate to trade, those that relate to seeds and genetic resources, and those that relate to rural development, for example. Of course, all these issues are linked. But the task seems insuperable unless we cut it down in separate chunks.

China as a growing economy is becoming a more and more important player in the global political and economic system. China supports Africa with money and advisors. Their relationship with developing countries is very different from that of the EU or the UN. What does this mean for small farmers in Africa?

China has to feed approximately 20 percent of the world’s population with about seven percent of the world’s arable land. Its population is still increasing, and its capacity to expand agricultural acreage is limited. They are in fact facing a rapid loss of arable land and a large amount of soil erosion, and their access to water is precarious. The melting of the great glaciers of the Himalayas will make their position less and less tenable in the future. It should therefore come as no surprise if they seek to invest in agriculture abroad, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where land is available and where labour is relatively inexpensive.

For the local communities, the arrival of investors often means that their access to land, and therefore their livelihoods, will be affected. Some small farmers will be moved to more marginal, less fertile land. Others may be offered waged employment on the large-scale plantations that investors will develop. Others still will have no alternative but to migrate to the cities, with little prospect of decent employment. These risks cannot be underestimated, and it is therefore vital that investment in agriculture be carefully guided, and that local communities be involved in negotiations that are conducted with such investors.

Some people plead for a clearer dichotomy between big and small farmers in the West: on the one hand, industrialised farms competing on international markets and on the other hand, more ecological farmers, near to markets and consumers. Would that be a strategy for the whole world or should all efforts go to small farmers on a global level?

This is still an open question, in my view. The coexistence of very large, agro-industrial farms, and small-scale, sustainable farming, is something a country such as Brazil is trying to achieve. At a minimum, it requires strong support of family farming by the state. Smaller farms, while very productive per hectare, are more labour intensive and thus produce at higher costs. Therefore they must be supported, or they will be wiped out in increasingly competitive markets. Governments can support family farms by providing loans at lower-than-market rates, by adequate public procurement policies, by supporting farmers’ organisations, by providing access to credit and insurance against weather-related events or crop losses, and by supplying management policies or buying policies to establish public stocks that can ensure stable revenues. I don’t think we should place too many hopes on the attitudes of individual consumers. Although these attitudes are changing (consumers pay greater attention to where food comes from and how it was produced), price remains a determining factor for them.

Interview done by: Mireille Vermeulen

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