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Moderated conference on rural advisory services for family farms: 1-18 December 2014

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Fri, 5 Dec 2014 13:13:00 +0100
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My name is Sabine Wischnat and I hold a master degree in agricultural sciences in the tropics/subtropics from Hohenheim University, Germany. I worked several years in Panama with smallholder farmers and lived on my husband's family's farm, which classifies as a medium-sized farm for subsistence and some sales of surplus.



The situation I observed in Panama is that there is great need for improvement in governmental support to address the following problems:

 

1. Livestock production: Seeds and support for establishing improved pastures are available to farmers. In order to improve productivity of livestock, especially cattle, it is very important though to improve the genetic material through crossbreeding of suitable varieties that tolerate the climatic conditions and poor feed quality and through selection of good performers. Programmes facilitating artificial insemination and capacity building on monitoring of performance and the establishment of breeding plans could enhance production and thus livelihoods significantly.



2. Crops and horticulture: Seed material for the production of cereals and horticulture consists to a large proportion in imported seeds from the United States. Very often, these plants are susceptible to pathogens and perform poorly as they are not adapted to the environmental conditions of Panama. Small-holder farmers often propagate plants through seed extraction from fruits, vegetables or grains purchased for consumption or produced on their own farm. While this might work out well for endemic varieties, very often the quality is not suitable for marketing with the result that fruits and vegetables on the formal markets are often imported and very costly. The local production is not suitable to cater to the national demand and little research is carried out to produce seed material providing high quality and disease-resistant varieties to enhance the local production of agricultural commodities.  



While extension agencies exist, farmers in remote areas are not reached by the extension staff. The governmental extension agencies promote rather input-intensive practices that only commercial farmers can afford to implement. Less emphasis is put on upgrading small-scale farming productivity. Policies would be needed to shift the focus of the extension agencies while at the same time linking to research designed to develop innovative solutions and overcome the limitations for family farmers to produce marketable commodities and increase their livelihoods.

 

Sabine Wischnat

Forest Finance Panama S.A.

Ciudad del Saber 323

Panama City

Panama

e-mail: sabinewischnat (at) gmx.de



[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] For further information, see http://www.fao.org/nr/research-extension-systems/res-home/news/detail/en/c/264776/  



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