Глобальный форум по продовольственной безопасности и питанию (Форум FSN)

In the current discussion, the focus has been chiefly on the impact of agriculture on nutrition security. In this context, I wanted to bring in the role of the government in promoting food and nutrition security amongst the population. In India, the Public Distribution System (PDS) is an important channel through which the vulnerable sections receive a monthly quota of cereals, kerosene and sugar. A few states have initiated the distribution of pulses and millets in the PDS. It is no surprise that these particular states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Chhattisgarh- for pulses and Karnataka- for millets also show a better nutrition status.

In the agriculture sector, a few schemes such as Integrated Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oil Palm and Maize (ISOPOM) in 2004 gave states the flexibility to utilize the funds for the scheme/crop of their choice. In 2007, the Additional Central Assistance Scheme (RKVY) incentivised states to draw up plans for their agriculture sector more comprehensively, taking agro-climatic conditions, natural resource issues and technology into account, and integrating livestock, poultry and fisheries more fully. These are just a few examples to showcase that the role of the government is extremely important in the promotion of a farming system which aids nutrition security.

Recently we have conducted a study in the north-eastern part of Bangladesh known as haor region where people live more than 6 months with flood in a year. The study participants indicated that the main occupation of the people in haor is rice cultivation and they have been doing it from generation to generation. They need to depend on their rice production to maintain their livelihood. However, they can hardly do it throughout the year because of long term flood. During the period of flood, they stop agricultural work and migrate to other places to find out alternatives otherwise stay jobless. Sometimes, the flood ravage their paddy fields before harvesting. The whole thing affect their living standard, food consumption, and nutritional status. Now, if we talk about sustainable farming systems for nutrition for such areas like haor we really need to understand how much it is possible to increase the resilience of farming systems in those areas given the seasonal vulnerability and remoteness of the areas. It will not be surprising if people grown up in such a vulnerable condition, consider nutritional diversity as a luxury because of their limited scope of growing diversified crops, and everyday struggle to secure shelter, earning and other basic needs.

Today marks the opening of the 23rd Conference of the Parties in Bonn, Germany (so called COP23) which is the United Nations’ annual meeting on climate change. A major theme of the conference this year will be the role that the agriculture sector has in meeting globally-agreed greenhouse gas emission targets. It is therefore really exciting to see such an active forum discussion board, read your thoughts and learn about all the interesting research underway.

Over the past week I have been particularly struck by contributions that have identified the importance of agriculture as a provider of eco-system services that support efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of farming. But many contributors have also noted the sometimes negative impacts of agricultural policies that don’t directly consider environmental impacts on issues such as land use, women’s empowerment and nutrition outcomes.

Several contributors have provided interesting lists of actions in agriculture (both technologies and interventions/policies) that are thought to benefit environmental outcomes. But how strong is the evidence for these technologies and policies? Do we really have the data to press policy makers to be making the right decisions that benefit both the planet and populations? Finally, our discussions have largely been about small-scale farming activities. While small-holder and subsistence farmers are among the most vulnerable populations on earth, does their impact on the environment outweigh the role of big agri-business? Should we in fact be focusing much more on the role that big business has to play in this critical issue?

We’ve only got a few days left on this forum so please send in your thoughts quickly! Thanks to you all for your superb contributions so far.

India has been traditionally practising integrated farming system (IFS) in households. With the small piece of land of 0.4 ha or below that food commodities for the family used to be through cereal crops, tuber crops and vegetables along with backyard poultry and goats if not one or two bovine animals.

The idea of commercial agriculture led to mono-cropping and market driven agriculture. Emphasis on quantities paved the road for the use of agrochemicals such as fertilisers, pesticides and other agrochemicals. The package of practices towards maximisation of yield from high yielding crop varieties (hybrids??) left with farmers the paradigm of hopeful bounty although every five year average was ‘standstill progress’ of the farm economics. High investment for maximisation of farm productivity focussed to crops left the farmers with negative balance and huge risk in the wake of dwindling marketing opportunity.

UN-Sustainable development goal-2 aspires for zero hunger and sustainable agriculture. Sustainability cannot be dreamt of in agriculture with drive for targeted agricultural production and productivity through technologies that suck in farmers’ investment for farm inputs. It has ended up as market driven hawkish input service system and no market appreciation for farm commodities.

Today globally farmers have become disillusioned due to the unsustainable farm economics. Indian farmers’ plight is no different from this. The challenge on nutrition of farm families due to negative balance arising from farming lead to poor nutrition of these small-farmers (land holders & landless labourers) and farm-families.

Sustainable agriculture shall focus into nutritious farm commodities and is possible if the marginal farmers are given direct cash transfer for purchase of commodities from market wherever these are not cultivated or produced in their farms.

Lastly addiction to tobacco and alcohol has become rampant in rural life. Tobacco is used in families to suppress hunger of its members who ultimately become addicts. The government policies on these revenue earning commodities has become evil influence in rural life. The aspiration for sustainable agriculture and nutritional security backfires when the health of the rural farming communities is challenged under the influence of government patronage of such addictive substances.

The correction of such situation begins from a moral and pecuniary upgradation of rural folks.

Can non-government organisations arise and group together to fight this impasse?

Dear All,

I am Aminata F Kandeh from Sierra Leone thanks to these who have contributed to the different topic in this forum. Am so delighted to be part of this forum am learning a lot , I will like to give my own contribution on question four which says What interventions do you think are needed to increase the agriculture sector resilience to environmental stressors, especially among smallholder farmers? In my country we have not yet embark on commercial farming although we have some people in to it but the percentage is not compared to those that are not.  Am sure the major problem is with the government they should provide the enable environment for us such as good road network, electricity and many more. Also the agricultural sector should provide the necessary input and equipment for the farmers, for example machines, Seeds and other farm input at very reasonable price so that the farmers will be able to plant and on time.

I will want the government to pay more attention to agriculture because it is the way out for the development of my country we are blessed with so many raw materials, minerals and the climate condition is ok. In addition they need to encourage investors in the field to invest in the country by reducing the level of taxes on them and also make sure that they sign an agreement that whatever raw materials they produce in the country should be as well processed here.

Furthermore, most of the students that studied agriculture do not want to go to the field because we are not encouraged as those that studied accounting, information Technology and the likes. Majority of the youth in my country see farming as poor man job and most of them are living in the city, the stakeholders need to make the field very attractive one like the others and also provide basic facilities such as pipe burn water, electricity, health centers and the likes in all the districts by so doing we will have more youth going in to farming. This is my humble contribution thanks for reading.

Within the gender research conducted through LANSA in India, we have examined the impact of agriculture and the environment on food and nutrition security. In Koraput, Odisha, we found that women control the choice of crops and the output, critical for household nutrition, in the uplands. They grow millets, horsegram, niger and vegetables on these plots(Rao, 2017 http://lansasouthasia.org/content/gendered-time-seasonality-and-nutrition-insights-two-indian-districts). These contribute to the diversity of diets at home, but women also sell small quantities in the local markets, whenever they need cash for expenses.

Yet today corporate interventions, especially the rapid spread of eucalyptus plantations for the paper industry, across this region, is displacing women farmers from their upland plots. A Paroja woman in Koraput noted, “I used to grow mandya in two plots for our daily consumption. Someone from the company spoke to my husband and convinced him of the profitability of planting eucalyptus. He agreed, and now I have only one plot left. Only if there is food from our land, is there happiness”. The option of course is to purchase millets from the market, but this is hardly available and prices are unaffordable.

While denying the jointness of both production and reproduction in tribal areas, these interventions are gradually making male control of land, income and indeed women the norm, with negative consequences for nutrition. Baseline nutritional data from LANSA research in Koraput indicates that over 50% of both under-5 and adult population are underweight, especially amongst the STs and SCs. The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (2009), noting a marginal decline in Chronic Energy Deficiency amongst STs between 1985-2008, alongside a secular decline in the consumption of roots and tubers, as well as other vegetables, confirms this finding.

Rice is the most staple food in Asia. The Asian rice sector supports 140 million farmers who cultivate rice on 145 million hectares of harvested area, employs 300 million people in the rice value chain activities, and it is an important staple food for 60% of the Asian population. The mean size of one hectare per farm is too small to support a family of 5-6 members. Further continuous fragmentation of rice farms after each generation poses serious challenges to the viability of rice farming in Asia. Given the mounting pressures to quit rice farming, smallholder farmers continue to persist, especially in South and East Asia, despite fast developing economy and increasing urbanization. There is also a growing agrarian crisis in most developing countries of Asia due to a long neglect of rural areas where most of the smallholders live and farm. They suffer from poverty, malnutrition, dispossession of land assets, and death. We need an urgent and a comprehensive solution to tackle this rural degradation and agrarian crisis.

Precision farming and resource-conserving technologies are now available and new ones are being developed to tackle the technical constraints of rice-based farming systems. Farmers must be empowered and faclitated to better adopt the currently available technologies -- the Best Management Practices for lowland rice farming in Asia.

Climate change remediation by individual farmers: Farmers must make every family farm a climate-smart farm, one which is equipped with the knowledge and technologies essential to manage and mitigate the expected adverse impacts of Climate Change on agriculture. Achieving the triple objectives – adaptation, mitigation and food security – is increasingly being called “climate-smart agriculture.” In climate smart farms, farmers should use stress (flood, drought, pests and diseases) tolerant or resistant rice varieties with appropriate production technologies that reduce such stresses. In addition, farmers need to improve cropland management practices and restore organic matter into the soil. Increasing soil organic matter content in farms not only increases carbon sequestration – a climate mitigation function, but also enhances soil quality, water-holding capacity, nutrient use efficiency, and finally higher crop yields. Alternative wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation method thus has the potential to reduce the global warming impact of irrigated rice farming by one-third, relative to the continuously flooded rice system.

Governemnt actions needed to contain climate change: Important actions, ones which must be taken by national or local governments, include building irrigation-drainage facilities for farmers to cope with changing rainfall patterns. There must be an adequate supply of good quality seeds and other farm inputs at the right price. Governments should assist in the building of rural processing facilities and improve farmers’ access to key markets. Government support for affordable rural education and healthcare and renewable energy infrastructure is imperative.

Finally, favorable policy and institutional support are critical for:

• Identifying climate-related risks and stresses along the entire value chain
• Breeding rice varieties that are more tolerant of climate-related abiotic stress (drought, flood, cold, & high temperature) and also have increased resistance to biotic stressors (insect pests and diseases)
• Deployment of scientific findings and technologies to make farming practices much more efficient at using natural resources of soil, water, and energy, while optimizing necessary external inputs, including fertilizers and pesticides
• Equipping and empowering smallholder farmers to adopt ecologically sound conservation agriculture practices. These will include improving soil health and fertility, a better management of water and energy resources, enhancing biodiversity both on-farm and off-farm, implementing appropriate farm mechanization, and using agroforestry systems whenever feasible
• Enhancing the adoption of smallholder crop-animal production systems as a means to improve cash flow, family nutrition and health, and resilience against abrupt changes in weather and or markets.

Addressing the socio-economic and policy constraints is the most difficult for all. Rural reconstruction is the key to improving rural livelihoods and reducing rural to urban migration. What we need is to develop smart villages rather than smart cities by improving rural living conditions through better and affordable healthcare and education facilities, better rural infrastructure for farm production, processing and storage, as well as good roads and efficient transport to well-functioning markets.

Given the persistence of smallholders in Asia, the governments should enable such farmers to make a decent living out of their farms. We need to explore some smart ways to increase the effective farm size through consolidation of small holdings without farmers losing their title to their lands. Some examples of increasing effective farm size include a kind of “village farming” in China, “small farmers, large farm” in Vietnam, and professionally managed groups of small holders in Indonesia. Farmers in such large virtual farms should have decent access to good quality water resources, favorable land tenure system, favorable weather, appropriate technologies, training and technical support, credit, insurance, and adequate rural infrastructure (health, education, roads, transport, and processing and storage facilities). Such well-supported large virtual farms will adopt precision farming methods to produce adequate quantities of good quality produce for efficient marketing at attractive price.

Over all, we need appropriate policy and institutional support systems in place – ones which will allow farmers to make intensification of rice farming sustainable, profitable, regenerative, and supportive of the land and water resource bases, and of the environment. A comprehensive understanding of scientific, technical, environmental, economical, and societal issues - including re-education of farmers and stabilization of the human population – is a prerequisite to effectively implementing eco-efficient farming practices. There is, however, no assurance that all the necessary prerequisites will be met, yet the food and nutrition security of billions of human beings depends on success in implementing a truly sustainable agricultural ecosystem(s) for growing rice across Asia.

What interventions do you think are needed to increase the agriculture sector resilience to environmental stressors, especially among smallholder farmers?

Presently, in Nigeria it is easier for a well-established farm to get intervention that someone who has a land and a business plan with no heavy funds or assets in collateral

One of the major issues with West African countries is that intervention comes in form of cash which are often diverted of misappropriated.

A lot of awareness is need to make the small farmers see reason to change their ways and ensuring they get practical intervention is one of the many things needed.

Most small scale farmers cannot afford the cost of machineries nor the cost of entry into the elite cooperatives that get easy access to interventions so they continue to toil for their meagre yield. Government intervention is often tied to empowering specific individuals.

Let us assume that instead of giving an individual a tractor, the government gives a farming settlement and locals are able to lease at much reduced rates. This would encourage cooperation in choice of crops (planting, harvesting processing gets synchronized, and ensure the community as a whole is able to work with government policies and goals instead of individuals striving alone.

Insisting on been part of a cooperative has not been working well as the administrators have also sabotaged the process often monetizing benefits to members...hence my suggesting Farm allotted settlements be identified and related with like Local Government Areas thus breaking barriers for everyone within the settlement.

Thank you Takele Teshome for your contribution. Rightly said about importance of proper land use planning and cropping pattern as well as creating nutrition awareness and building linkages among different stakeholders  towards achieving food and nutritional security. Regarding sustainability of nutrition awareness programs, I would like to share one example from our study. Besides having workshops and meetings, we are  also conducting training programs to build capacity  of local men and women (Known as "Community Hunger Fighters") on nutrition related messages such as balanced diet, importance of hygiene and sanitation, nutritive value of different foods, food requirement at different stages of life cycle as well as  different ways of linking agriculture to nutrition, knowledge of entitlements on agriculture, food and nutrition in the area, so that they diffuse the message within and outside the community. 

We also have  nutrition garden interventions  in schools and ICDS centres where different groups of vegetables are grown and the produce is going towards the Mid Day Meal.

Thanks.

Aliza

Thank you Nicole Lowe for sharing your research. Interesting !