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Moderated e-mail conference on small farms and food security

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Wed, 12 Oct 2016 09:26:42 +0000
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This is Arbab Ghulam Qadir, again, in response to Message 8 (by Francisco Gurri):

I have also conducted several nutrition surveys. In order to avoid irrelevant detail I have given my conclusions/observations derived from those studies. During nutrition surveys, the majority of the respondents informed that they rely on less preferred food, borrow food items from relatives or purchase on credit from local shop. 

In most of the cases, in rural areas of Pakistan (I do assume it may be like this in most developing countries), small farmers consume grain (wheat and rice) stored for annual consumption with vegetables and pulses or butter etc.

Your point is correct that the traditional food systems are highly complementary i.e. usage of milk and its by-products with those small farmers who have also livestock holdings. But in reality in rural areas, these are old days when small farmers have surplus milk, and now rarely we see small farming households consuming milk and its by-products at home in rural areas. They sell it mainly due to extreme poverty.

My opinion is simple that due to poverty, the rural community (small farmers, small livestock keepers and share croppers) consume less preferred food items and it has become their eating routine over a long period and developed into habits. Even if some of these people become financially better off - they continue following old eating habits. Therefore, main focus should be on eradication of poverty among small farmers and creating awareness on nutritious food.

Poverty can be reduced through several ways and I do agree as pointed out by Phelix Oyath [message 15] that hunger and poverty can be fought through meaningful training on good crop production techniques, availability and accessibility of quality seeds and fertilizer through credit schemes etc.

I also strongly agree with Mahesh Chander [message 9] wherein he has suggested inclusion of landless livestock keepers and share croppers who also constitute major portion of rural and agri based population. They should not be ignored in any food security project interventions.

Once we are successful in eradicating poverty by increasing farm income leading to surplus income with small farmers, they can easily be induced to consume nutritious food items and for this, we will need to create awareness. I totally agree with the opinion of Dick Tinsley [message 13] who has given deep insight into daily agronomic field work and need of 4000 kcal. And by consuming less than this - will reduce their working capacity by prolonged work etc. 

Hope I am able to explain my opinion, but please feel free to guide and correct me on any point.

Arbab Ghulam Qadir 
Senior Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator
Management & Development Centre (Development Consultancy Firm),
Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan
Cell: 0092-302-5237326
Off: 0092-22--2653068
Email: gqarbab (at) gmail.com
Wed: www.mdcpk.org 

[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/434322/ ].

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