As I have contributed to previous FAO discussions, please allow some comments on the Agrifood System Technologies & Innovations Outlook (ATIO) Knowledge Base (KB) that are often overlooked by our Agriculture Development efforts but failing to take into consideration could hinder the widespread acceptance of ATIO/KB innovations across smallholder communities.
- First, don’t we have to consider ATIO/KB programs, not only for meeting the needs of smallholder farm families and local smallholder communities, but also the national needs? With an ever-growing urban population, farming communities, even smallholder communities, must produce sufficient food surplus to meet the food security needs of urban areas. If not, won’t governments have to spend limited foreign exchange resources on imported food to feed the urban population? This implies encouraging subsistence farmers to become more commercial. Doesn’t promoting subsistence farming result in poverty entrapment?
- Second, do we need to consider the Dietary Energy Balance Deficit faced by smallholder farmers to assure we are not attempting to compel smallholders to exert more caloric energy than they have access to. There is a very high probability that most food systems innovations are compelling smallholders to exert more energy than they have access to as it requires some 4000 kcal/day (i.e. 1.2 kg of uncooked maize or milled rice) to undertake a full day of agronomic field work. However, too often smallholder farmers are lucky to have access to only 2500 kcal/day. Of this 2000 kcal/day are required for basic metabolism leaving only 500 kcal/day for physical exertion need for manual 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 productivity. It should be noted that in Kenya the causal labor workday is only 5 hours. The result is extending the time required for basic agronomic tasks such as taking 8+ weeks for basic crop establishment. Will this delay render most of the ATIO/KB innovations null & void for most of smallholder communities cultivated lands. Something easily observed by looking at the crop land associated with any smallholder community and considering this a problem of hunger and exhaustion rather than education, motivation, or risk aversion. If limited available calories are hindering economic opportunity, how rational is it for smallholder farmers to emphasis high calorie crops over more healthy diverse foods that ATIO/KB innovations might advocate? How does the delayed crop establishment impact on potential yield, that normally declines with delayed crop establishment, and food security for families, communities and nations? How much of the limited acceptance and scaling of innovations including ATIO/KB efforts 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? How often do ATIO/KB innovations require more labor than the indigenous Agricultural System they propose to replace?
- How important is it to review the operational feasibility of ATIO/KB innovations to make certain smallholder farmers or other beneficiaries have access to the necessary labor or mechanization to implement innovations in a timely manner over all desired fields within a community that would allow them to fully benefit from the innovations? Who within the development effort is responsible for determining the labor requirements for timely implementation of ATIO/KB innovations? More important, how much labor is available 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 possible and desirable, but saying nothing about what is required to extend small plot results across a smallholder farming community; and the economists or other social scientists that might determine the labor requirements for a cost/benefit analysis, but rarely address the available of labor across the community, let alone appropriate compromises if that labor is not available? Be careful in assessing available 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, for a zero net benefit over the entire farming community. Shouldn’t the success of ATIO/KB innovations be based community wide acceptance and not just pilot farms demonstrate success? What would be the minimal percentage of a beneficiary communities cultivated land would you accept as utilizing ATIO/KB innovations to consider the innovation a success, below this percent would be considered a failure and the need to return to the proverbial drawing board for substantial modification to the innovations?
- How critical is it in scaling ATIO/KB 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 wider acceptance of ATIO/KB innovations by the smallholder 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 crop irrigated lands, when small combines became available produce 5 crops every 2 years, provide the labor needed for the “Tiger Economies” of southeast Asia, and allow these countries to become the major exporters to rice for the rest of the world? However, this substantial impact of mechanization was all farmers initiated and thus overlooked by the development effort. Also, look at Egypt where individually owner/operator contract tractor operators have done most of the initial 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? Will enhancing access to mechanization promote wider acceptance of ATIO/KB innovations than continuing to badger farmers with extension/education programs they likely have a good basic understanding of but do not have the operational capacity to take advantage of over their entire holding.
- In enhancing access to mechanization how critical is it to make certain this is by individual owner/operators and not any form of institutional or communal owner as such schemes have resulted in equipment being surveyed out of use with less than half the designed operating hours? Just visit any ADP in Nigeria and note the line-up of tractors surveyed out of service with only limited operational hours logged. Is the real challenge here to identify individuals within a smallholder community who can drift out of direct farming to become full-time mechanization service providers? (Combining personal farming and tractor services would be a conflict of interest hindering both activities.) What kind of credit arrangements can be made to assist with the initial costs of purchasing the farm equipment as well as meeting some of the operating costs so their services can initially be offered on credit for payment after harvest?
- Would addressing the dietary energy limits, and enhancing access to mechanization have more impact on scaling ATIO/KB innovations than extension/education 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 programs managing small (6 x 10 m) plots in remote experiment stations with little restriction on operational resources 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, identifying and addressing what is hindering acceptance? If this was accepted as the primary objective of development projects, would we have identified and addressed the critical need to facilitate access to mechanization a couple decades ago?
- Is there a rational disconnect between research/extension personnel and smallholder farmers? Doesn’t small plot research/demonstrations emphasis maximum yield thus return to land. In contrast don’t smallholder farmers emphasis returns to labor resulting in making rational compromises in lowering managing one enterprise to enhance another so they can Maximize Total Returns to All Farm Enterprises!!? Does the concern to maximize returns to labor become more critical the more impoverished the family?
- If the Dietary Energy Balance Deficit, operational feasibility, and enhanced access to contract mechanization are not recognized, fully appreciated and addressed in ATIO/KB effort to assist smallholder communities will the scaling be limited to small pilot areas rather a major percent of the communities cultivate lands? If that is the case isn’t the effort little more than an expression of the donors’ good intentions without being a sincere commitment to achieving substantial change. Is this acceptable?!!
For an expansion of the ideas expressed above please review the referenced linked article reflecting on my 50+ years effort to assist smallholder communities. It more concerned with factual accuracy than political correctness, as only an emeritus professor can express. The link is: https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2023/03/Reflections.pdf
I hope this provides some food for thought and is helpful in your ATIO/KB efforts to assist smallholder farmers to accept and scale your innovations.
Thank you.
1 Counting Coup is an indigenous North American plains warrior tradition of winning prestige against an enemy without killing them.
Dr. Dick Tinsley