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Moderated e-mail conference on small farms and food security

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Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:48:20 +0000
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My name is Patrick N. Jellason, a third year PhD researcher in the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, UK. I am currently working on enhancing resilience and food security of northern Nigerian dryland smallholders in the era of climate change.

In response to question 3.4.1: 

Taking examples from my research and field engagement, smallholders with 2 hectares or less have evolved with their local approaches to soil fertility and rain water management in those areas. However, results from baseline studies indicate some practices critical to resilience enhancement and food security in dry areas to be lacking in those areas such as rain water harvesting for small scale irrigation, mulching and other conservation farming practices. Also, women were not involved with farming in the study communities due to cultural and religious reasons as opposed to reports in the literature that show women to be big contributors to agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. 

After group engagement with women, men and youth groups separately, good agricultural practices that are climate smart (that ensure environmental sustainability, food security in a socially, economic and environmentally friendly way) were selected from a set of options reviewed from the literature. The women's group believed they have so much to contribute to household food security and improved nutrition if their husbands could allow them to participate in farming activities. 

That informed the idea of mainstreaming gender in the selection of practices. Bio-intensive vegetables gardening that contains all the essential food items for enhanced nutrition was identified by the women themselves from a selection of options. These gardens were established inside their houses or in the backyard for those with space using rain water collected to irrigate the gardens. The men's consent was separately sought in a focus group with benefits of their spouses involvement in farming highlighted. This made them accept to allow their wives since it does not involve the women leaving their homes which they said was not culturally acceptable. The women have since reported success with their gardens.

In summary, this was a successful participatory approach to engaging smallholders in ensuring sustainable food production that is socially acceptable, economically viable (saving costs of buying vegetables) and environmentally sustainable (using locally made compost and harvested rain water). By so doing, improved family nutrition was ensured in a sustainable way.

Patrick Nugun Jellason
PhD Researcher
Royal Agricultural University
Cirencester, GL7 6 JS
England
United Kingdom
E-mail: NugunPatrick.Jellason (at) student.rau.ac.uk

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