Save and growA policymaker’s guide to the sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION |
Foreword
The Green Revolution in agriculture, which swept much of the developing world during the 1960s, saved an estimated one billion people from famine. Thanks to high-yielding crop varieties, irrigation, agrochemicals and modern management techniques, farmers in developing countries increased food production from 800 million tonnes to more than 2.2 billion tonnes between 1961 and 2000. Intensive crop production helped to reduce the number of undernourished, drive rural development and prevent the destruction of natural ecosystems to make way for extensive farming. Those achievements came at a cost. In many countries, decades of intensive cropping have degraded fertile land and depleted groundwater, provoked pest upsurges, eroded biodiversity, and polluted air, soil and water. As the world population rises to a projected 9.2 billion in 2050, we have no option but to further intensify crop production. But the yield growth rate of major cereals is declining, and farmers face a series of unprecedented, intersecting challenges: increasing competition for land and water, rising fuel and fertilizer prices, and the impact of climate change.
The present paradigm of intensive crop production cannot meet the challenges of the new millennium. In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save. Consider, for example, the hidden cost of repeated ploughing. By disrupting soil structure, intensive tillage leads to loss of nutrients, moisture and productivity. More farmers could save natural resources, time and money if they adopted conservation agriculture (CA), which minimizes tillage, protects the soil surface, and alternates cereals with soil-enriching legumes. Those simple practices help to reduce crops’ water needs by 30 percent and the energy costs of production by up to 60 percent. In trials in southern Africa, they increased maize yields six-fold. Combining CA with precision irrigation produces more crops from fewer drops. Farmers can reduce the need for fertilizers by adopting “precision placement”, which doubles the amount of nutrients absorbed by plants. By using insecticides wisely, they can save pest predators and disrupt the cycle of pest resistance. Economizing on agrochemicals and building healthy agro-ecosystems would enable low-income farm families in developing countries – some 2.5 billion people – to maximize yields and invest the savings in their health and education.
This new paradigm of agriculture is sustainable crop production intensification (SCPI), which can be summed up in the words “save and grow”. Sustainable intensification means a productive agriculture that conserves and enhances natural resources. It uses an ecosystem approach that draws on nature’s contribution to crop growth – soil organic matter, water flow regulation, pollination and natural predation of pests – and applies appropriate external inputs at the right time, in the right amount. “Save and grow” farming systems offer proven productivity, economic and environmental benefits. A review of agricultural development in 57 low-income countries found that ecosystem farming led to average yield increases of almost 80 percent. Conservation agriculture, which is practised on more than 100 million hectares worldwide, contributes to climate change mitigation by sequestering in soil millions of tonnes of carbon a year.
SCPI represents a major shift from the homogeneous model of crop production to knowledge-intensive, often location-specific, farming systems. Its application will require significant support to farmers in testing new practices and adapting technologies. Governments will need to strengthen national programmes for plant genetic resources conservation, plant breeding and seed distribution in order to deploy improved crop varieties that are resilient to climate change and use nutrients, water and external inputs more efficiently. Fundamental changes are also required in agricultural development strategies. Policymakers must provide incentives for adoption of SCPI, such as rewarding good management of agro-ecosystems. Developed countries should support sustainable intensification by increasing considerably the flow of external assistance to, and investment in, agriculture in the developing world.
Sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production is one of FAO’s strategic objectives. Our aim over the next 15 years is to assist developing countries in adopting “save and grow” policies and approaches. This book provides a toolkit of adaptable farming systems, technologies and practices, and explores the policies and the institutional arrangements that will support the large-scale implementation of SCPI.
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Jacques Diouf |
Acknowledgements
This book was produced under the direction of Shivaji Pandey, Director of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division. Guidance was provided by a steering committee and a technical advisory group. Final technical editing was done by Mangala Rai (President ofthe National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India), Timothy Reeves (former Director-General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), and Shivaji Pandey.
Authors
Lead authors:
Linda Collette (FAO), Toby Hodgkin (Bioversity International), Amir Kassam (University of Reading, UK), Peter Kenmore (FAO), Leslie Lipper (FAO), Christian Nolte (FAO), Kostas Stamoulis (FAO), Pasquale Steduto (FAO)
Collaborators:
Manuela Allara (FAO), Doyle Baker(FAO), Hasan Bolkan (Campbell Soup Co., USA), Jacob Burke (FAO), Romina Cavatassi (FAO), Mark L. Davis(FAO), Hartwig De Haen (University of Göttingen, Germany), João Carlos deMoraes Sá (Universidade Estadual dePonta Grossa, Brazil), Marjon Fredrix (FAO), Theodor Friedrich (FAO), Kakoli Ghosh (FAO), Jorge Hendrichs (FAO/IAEA), Barbara Herren (FAO), Francesca Mancini (FAO), Philip Mikos (EC), Thomas Osborn (FAO), Jules Pretty (University of Essex, UK), David Radcliffe (EC), Timothy Reeves (Timothy G. Reeves and Associates P/L, Australia), Mike Robson (FAO), Amit Roy (IFDC), Francis Shaxson (Tropical Agriculture Association, UK), Hugh Turral (RPF P/L, Australia), Harry Van der Wulp (FAO)
Steering committee
Chair: Shivaji Pandey (FAO)
Rodney Cooke (IFAD), Dennis Garrity (ICRAF), Toby Hodgkin (Bioversity International), Philip Mikos (EC), Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini (Iran), Timothy Reeves (Timothy G. Reeves and Associates P/L, Australia), Amit Roy (IFDC), M. S. Swaminathan (M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, India)
Technical advisory group
Hasan Bolkan (Campbell Soup Co., USA), Anne-Marie Izac (Future Harvest Alliance, France), Louise Jackson (University of California, Davis, USA), Janice Jiggins (Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands), Patrick Mulvany (Intermediate Technology Development Group, UK), Wayne Powell (Aberystwyth University, UK), Jessie Sainz Binamira (Department of Agriculture, the Philippines), Bob Watson (University of East Anglia, UK)
Overview
1. The challenge
To feed a growing world population, we have no option but to intensify crop production. But farmers face unprecedented constraints. In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save.
The Green Revolution led to a quantum leap in food production and bolstered world food security. In many countries, however, intensive crop production has depleted agriculture’s natural resource base, jeopardizing future productivity. In order to meet projected demand over the next 40 years, farmers in the developing world must double food production, a challenge made even more daunting by the combined effects of climate change and growing competition for land, water and energy. This book presents a new paradigm: sustainable crop production intensification (SCPI), which produces more from the same area of land while conserving resources, reducing negative impacts on the environment and enhancing natural capital and the flow of ecosystem services.
2. Farming systems
Crop production intensification will be built on farming systems that offer a range of productivity, socio-economic and environmental benefits to producers and to society at large.
The ecosystem approach to crop production regenerates and sustains the health of farmland. Farming systems for SCPI will be based on conservation agriculture practices, the use of good seed of high-yielding adapted varieties, integrated pest management, plant nutrition based on healthy soils, efficient water management, and the integration of crops, pastures, trees and livestock. The very nature of sustainable production systems is dynamic: they should offer farmers many possible combinations of practices to choose from and adapt, according to their local production conditions and constraints. Such systems are knowledge-intensive. Policies for SCPI should build capacity through extension approaches such as farmer field schools, and facilitate local production of specialized farm tools.
3. Soil health
Agriculture must, literally, return to its roots by rediscovering the importance of healthy soil, drawing on natural sources of plant nutrition, and using mineral fertilizer wisely.
Soils rich in biota and organic matter are the foundation of increased crop productivity. The best yields are achieved when nutrients come from a mix of mineral fertilizers and natural sources, such as manure and nitrogen-fixing crops and trees. Judicious use of mineral fertilizers saves money and ensures that nutrients reach the plant and do not pollute air, soil and waterways. Policies to promote soil health should encourage conservation agriculture and mixed crop-livestock and agroforestry systems that enhance soil fertility. They should remove incentives that encourage mechanical tillage and the wasteful use of fertilizers, and transfer to farmers precision approaches such as urea deep placement and site-specific nutrient management.
4. Crops and varieties
Farmers will need a genetically diverse portfolio of improved crop varieties that are suited to a range of agro-ecosystems and farming practices, and resilient to climate change.
Genetically improved cereal varieties accounted for some 50 percent of the increase in yields over the past few decades. Plant breeders must achieve similar results in the future. However, timely delivery to farmers of high-yielding varieties requires big improvements in the system that connects plant germplasm collections, plant breeding and seed delivery. Over the past century, about 75 percent of plant genetic resources (PGR) has been lost and a third of today’s diversity could disappear by 2050. Increased support to PGR collection, conservation and utilization is crucial. Funding is also needed to revitalize public plant breeding programmes. Policies should help to link formal and farmer-saved seed systems, and foster the emergence of local seed enterprises.
5. Water management
Sustainable intensification requires smarter, precision technologies for irrigation and farming practices that use ecosystem approaches to conserve water.
Cities and industries are competing intensely with agriculture for the use of water. Despite its high productivity, irrigation is under growing pressure to reduce its environmental impact, including soil salinization and nitrate contamination of aquifers. Knowledge-based precision irrigation that provides reliable and flexible water application, along with deficit irrigation and wastewater-reuse, will be a major platform for sustainable intensification. Policies will need to eliminate perverse subsidies that encourage farmers to waste water. In rainfed areas, climate change threatens millions of small farms. Increasing rainfed productivity will depend on the use of improved, drought-tolerant varieties and management practices that save water.
6. Plant protection
Pesticides kill pests, but also pests’ natural enemies, and their overuse can harm farmers, consumers and the environment. The first line of defence is a healthy agro-ecosystem.
In well managed farming systems, crop losses to insects can often be kept to an acceptable minimum by deploying resistant varieties, conserving predators and managing crop nutrient levels to reduce insect reproduction. Recommended measures against diseases include use of clean planting material, crop rotations to suppress pathogens, and eliminating infected host plants. Effective weed management entails timely manual weeding, minimized tillage and the use of surface residues. When necessary, lower risk synthetic pesticides should be used for targeted control, in the right quantity and at the right time. Integrated pest management can be promoted through farmer field schools, local production of biocontrol agents, strict pesticide regulations, and removal of pesticide subsidies.
7. Policies and institutions
To encourage smallholders to adopt sustainable crop production intensification, fundamental changes are needed in agricultural development policies and institutions.
First, farming needs to be profitable: smallholders must be able to afford inputs and be sure of earning a reasonable price for their crops. Some countries protect income by fixing minimum prices for commodities; others are exploring “smart subsidies” on inputs, targeted to low-income producers. Policymakers also need to devise incentives for small-scale farmers to use natural resources wisely – for example, through payments for environmental services and land tenure that entitles them to benefit from increases in the value of natural capital – and reduce the transaction costs of access to credit, which is urgently needed for investment. In many countries, regulations are needed to protect farmers from unscrupulous dealers selling bogus seed and other inputs. Major investment will be needed to rebuild research and technology transfer capacity in developing countries in order to provide farmers with appropriate technologies and to enhance their skills through farmer field schools.
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Save and grow (FAO, 2011) can be purchased from publications-sales@fao.org |
