Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Please allow some comments on Biodiversity and Food Security that are often overlooked by the development effort.

1. First, don’t we have to consider food security and biodiversity not only the family and local smallholder communities, but also the national needs?  With an ever-growing urban population, farming communities, even smallholder communities, must produce sufficient surplus to meet food security of urban areas.  If not, won’t government have to spend limited foreign exchange to imported food for the urban population. This implies encouraging subsistence farmers to become more commercial. Doesn’t promoting subsistence farming result in poverty entrapment?
2. Second, do we need to consider the Dietary Energy Balance deficit faced by smallholder farmers between the 4000 kcal/day needed for a full day of agronomic field work, vs. the only 2500 kcal/day commonly available? If it takes 2000 kcal/day for basic metabolism this leaves only 500 kcal/day for physical exertion for Agronomic field work. That is good for only a couple hours of diligent labor, perhaps paced over a couple more hours with less diligence and production. This will result in extending the time required for agronomic tasks like 8+ weeks for basic crop establishment. Something easily observed looking at the crop land associated with any smallholder community and consider this a problem of hunger and not an educational problem. If limited available calories is hindering economic opportunity, how rational is it for smallholder farmers to emphasis high calorie crops over more healthy diverse foods? How does the delayed crop establishment impact on potential yield and food security?  How much of the limited acceptance and scaling of innovations will this account for? Who is looking at dietary needs in terms of optimizing economic opportunities to meet food security requirements? How often do we recognize smallholder farmers are hungry without factoring hunger as a major hindrance is scaling innovations.
3. How important is it to review the operational feasibility of biodiverse innovations to make certain smallholder farmers or other beneficiaries have the labor or access to mechanization to implement innovations in a timely manner to fully benefit from the innovations? Who within the development effort is responsible for determining the labor requirements for timely implementation, more important how available is that labor across the farming community, what are the rational compromises farmers should make in adjusting the innovations to their limited operational capacity? Does this fall into an Administrative Void between the agronomists or other bio-scientists who do an excellent job of determining what is physically and desirable, but saying nothing about how to extend small plot results across a farming community; and the economists or other social scientists that might determine the needs for a cost/benefit analysis, but rarely address the available across the community? Be careful in assessing labor to make certain you are not “robbing Peter to pay Paul” as often available labor is other farmers opting for a day of casual labor at the expense of their farming operations.
4. How critical is it in scaling biodiverse and food security innovations to first facilitate access to contract mechanization? Won’t this enhance the area cultivated in the timely manner to take complete advantage of other crop husbandry activities, thus enhancing yield, family food security, and marketable surpluses to feed the urban populations? Will this then allow for more diversified, more nutritious diets for the producers? What was the impact 30+ years ago of the shift from water buffalo to power tillers in paddy producing Asia? Did this halve the paddy establishment time, allow smallholder farmers to increase the land area they managed, double crops irrigated land, and when small combines became available produce 5 crops every 2 years? However, this substantial impact of mechanization was all farmer initiated and thus overlooked by the development effort. Also, look at Egypt where individually owner/operator contract tractor operators have done most of the land preparation for smallholder farmers throughout the Nile Valley and Delta for at least 40 years. Could you expect a similar response throughout the rest of Africa? 
5. Would addressing the dietary energy limits, and enhancing access to mechanization have more impact on scaling biodiversity and food security than extension programs? Are we content to “Count Coup”1 on the number of farmers trained through FFS or other extension activities, attributing limited acceptance to poor extension, or poor learning capacity of farmers with limited educational opportunity?  Is this where we separate research/extension programs from development programs? Research/education managing small (6 x 10 m) plots in more remote experiment stations with unrestricted operational capacity vs smallholder farmers managing 1+ ha with limited operational capacity, while development projects being community based are in closer contact with the farmers? Thus, should their main concern be, while promoting the research/extension innovations, check to see and address what is hindering acceptance? If this was accepted as the primary objective of development projects, would it have identified and addressed the critical need to facilitate access to mechanization a couple decades ago? 
6. Is there a rational disconnect between research/extension and smallholder farmers? Doesn’t small plot research/demonstrations emphasis maximum yield thus return to land, while farmers emphasis returns to labor resulting in making rational compromises in managing one enterprise to enhance another so they have can Maximize Total Returns to All Farm Enterprises!!?
7. If the Dietary Energy Balance Deficit, operational feasibility, and enhanced access to contract mechanization are not recognized, fully appreciated and addressed in the development effort to assist smallholder communities only an expression of donors’ good intentions without a sincere commitment to achieving substantial change. 

For an expansion on the ideas expressed above please read the referenced article reflecting on my 50+ years effort to assist small holder communities. It more concerned with factual accuracy than political correctness, as only an emeritus professor can express.

I hope this is helpful to your efforts.

Thank you.

1 Counting Coup is an indigenous North American plains warrior tradition of winning prestige against an enemy without killing them.