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Moderated e-mail conference on small farms and food security

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Sat, 7 Apr 2018 20:24:36 +0000
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Hi everyone,

Ah, the powers of the internet age, enabling us to connect, no matter where we are, through electronic fora like this FAO/SALSA e-conference.

Here I am, sitting in a remote village high up in "Alto Adige", the mountainous region of North Italy, while I was processing messages coming in from all corners of the world this week. Also this week, the last snow was melting in the valleys over here. Through the window, I could see farmers (mostly small farmers) all around me, preparing their grazing fields so they could -finally after 4-5-6 months- get their livestock out of the winter shelters, preparing their fruit tree plots for the rapidly approaching - very short- spring cycle and getting their fields ready for new crops. Activity abound in the fields here, and in the virtual space of our e-conference as well, this week. -- And Fiona's summary for this 3rd e-conference week will follow shortly :-)

While normally, I'd wait until I have several input messages on the same topic, which we would then aggregate into one mail to you. But as we are approaching the end of the e-conference, I do not want to delay distributing incoming messages. So this aggregation is a mix of different topics.

--- Best, Peter

On Topic 2: Small farms’ contribution to resilience of the food system

Q2.1/5 - Question "2.1.  What are the ways that small farms contribute to the resilience of the food system in your region? Please provide examples."

From: Philip Siminyu <[log in to unmask]> (Kenya)
Small farms contribute to the resilience of the food system in my region by growing and harvesting and storing their harvest while using the harvest til the next harvest.
Example: Small holder maize producers produce their maize and every farmer stores more than 3 bags of 90 kilograms of maize. This makes the farmer to have food all year round.

(Moderator: ... which shows one distinction between small farmers and larger scale or industrial farms, and how the former directly contribute to the resilience of the food system)

______

On Topic 3: Strategies used by small farms to overcome challenges – a view of the past

Q3.1/8 - Question: "3.1 Identify the three main challenges which small farms, in your region, have faced in the recent past."

From: James Chacha <[log in to unmask]> (Tanzania)
I'm James Chacha, a food scientist from Morogoro, Tanzania.

Three main challenges which small farms have faced in the recent past include:

i) Absence of connectivity/link between farmers and researchers' findings.
This has been an ongoing problem though, since most of what is being obtained from the research arena is hardly disseminated back to the farmers. Research findings and developments ought to be communicated back to the farmers for improvement from their crude practices. New and practical ways need to be identified that will be user friendly to small holder farmers, most of whom are illiterate and are used to 'tangible' stuffs.

ii) Lack of farm inputs.
These include lack of improved seeds, fertilizer, chemicals such as pesticides/herbicides as well as improved tools. Small farms may at times provide greater yield, but with  the continual utilization of the same farms every year, mechanisms that will ensure the soil fertility is maintained if not refreshed need to be put in place. Bad enough, given the low financial ability of the small holder farmers to purchase the right kind of fertilizer, soil quality has been deteriorating resulting to decrease in yield over time. Moreover, losses occur due to the use of crude harvesting and processing tools, leave aside the poor and primitive storage mechanisms and tools. This has also led to huge decreases in the quantity and quality of produce coming from the farms.

iii) Poor orientation to modern agricultural technologies and agricultural know-how.
This goes back again to the researchers, practitioners and extension officers. From my point of view, the way the new practices, knowledge as well as newly introduced technologies are brought to the small farms is devastating. This is because the procedures are biased, as you can find that only small groups of small holder farmers are reached, most of whom are members of various groups or associations or cooperatives in the village. So, those who are not members of a group or cooperative have often been obtaining second-hand information on new technologies and knowledge, and at times none at all. It is therefore not surprising to find that from the same village, one small farm is productive and the other one (even adjacent to it) is unproductive. I think mechanisms should be developed to ensure that in the end, all small farms/farmers are beneficiaries of new agro-technologies.

______

On Topic 4:  How small farms address future challenges

Q4.2/10 - Question: "4.2.  To cope with these future challenges, do small farms require new innovations and adaptation techniques?  And if so, which?"

From: Mahesh Chander <[log in to unmask]> (India)
I see growing importance and increasing presence of International quality enhancing organizations like Fairtrade<https://www.fairtrade.net/standards/our-standards/small-producer-standards.html>, Fair for Life<http://www.fairforlife.org/pmws/indexDOM.php?client_id=fairforlife&page_id=home&lang_iso639=en> etc, who are promoting their standards, labels among the small scale producers in India as also elsewhere in developing countries.
The agriculture in future may be governed by these certification standards especially for exporting from the developing countries like India. The small scale producers are being educated, trained on input use, social development issues while producing the  products of required quality often ensuring market premiums to the producers and making available good quality products to the consumers.
This has created an opportunity for developing country producers to get engaged in agricultural production for export market.The small scale producers often lack capacities to link their products to international market but for these agencies the farmers are motivated to produce high quality products for export market. The export orientation, however, limits the scope of producing diverse products since the promoters focus on only a few select products which are in demand in importing countries.

From: Ghulam Qadir Arbab <[log in to unmask]> (Pakistan)
This is a response to the input from Ganesh Bora (USA) in Q4.2/9

Nice to see your email on adoption of Precision Agricultural (PA) Technology to cope with future challenges. A solution with practical example.

Since you have completed a project in Bangladesh, India and Thailand, I would highly appreciate if you may please also share the project reports so we can take benefit from your learning. I am extensively involved in working with small farms in Pakistan.

I am currently working in a Wordbank funded project which is focusing on increasing yield and sales of small to medium size farms.
I am very much sure that learning of PA technology in neighboring countries, which could also be replicated here as well.



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