Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

While I have only been able to briefly look at the draft document, there are a couple concerns that I have which are historically overlooked as I have harped on in previous forums. Thus, please allow me to mention them and ask how these are being or will be addressed in the final draft of the report.

1. The operational feasibility of agronomic interventions: This is basically an oversight in the development effort, but it severely hinders acceptance by smallholder farmers. When you carefully look at agronomy it does an excellent job of determining the physical potential of an area but says nothing about how the farmers will operationally achieve that. That is how much labor or access to contract mechanization is needed, and how readily available is it, with the default assumption that it is not a problem and labor is infinitely available. Basically, how often is it assumed that smallholder farmers working alone or maybe assisted by an adolescent son can manage their hectare plus of land as easily as research/extension officers can manage a 0.10 ha research of demonstration plot assisted by a hired labor crew. When you think about it, it is kind of a ridiculous assumption! The underlying problem is that the operational limitation in smallholder cultivation has fallen into an administrative void between the agronomist as applied biological scientist and the social scientist. Within the typical development effort who has the responsibility to estimate the labor requirements need to implement innovations, the availability of that labor and most critically what are the rational compromises smallholder farmers should make as integrate the innovation into their limited operational resources and the other farm enterprises they are involved with. When this is done most likely you will find the farmers are maxed out and maximizing, not the return to a give crop or livestock enterprise but maximizing the total return to all farm enterprises. I like to think of this a separating THE SCIENCE OF FARMING as defined by research/extension for the ART OF FARMING taking into consideration the limited operational capacity and integration across all enterprises. How much of the persistent yield gap between research/extension and farmers can be accounted for the limited operational capacity of the farmers? Is this a greater problem than lack of knowledge? Please visit and consider the following webpages and links within them: https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/integration-an-under… ; https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/OperationalFe…

2. Dietary Energy Balance: Another but highly related concern is the dietary energy balance between what smallholder farmers have access to and what they are expected to exert in doing a full day of agronomic field work. The difference is about 50% with farmers only having access to approximately 2000 to 2500 kcal/day when the need more than 4000 kcal/day. While we recognize that most smallholders are poor and hungry we usually fail to see that as a major hindrance to crop production. If you consider 2000 kcal/day as representing basic metabolism, smallholder farmers often are barely able to have access to enough energy to meet the basic metabolism requirements with little energy for heavy manual labor such as land preparation using a hoe, which consume some 300 kcal/hr. This then substantially curtails the workday to a few diligent hours of labor, perhaps paced for a couple more. It than extends the crop establishment time for up to 8 weeks with progressively declining potential yields, until the crop is established too late to for sufficient yield to meet domestic food security needs let alone have some surplus to move up the value chain. The result of both these issues is to consider emphasizing drudgery relief instead of crop or animal extension education. Please consider the following webpages and included links: https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/ECHO-Diet.pdf ; https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/ethiopia-diet-analys… ; https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/BrinksDrudger…

I think that hits the main point. If these issues are included please point out where so I can quickly review them. Thank you.