This is Dick Tinsley, professor emeritus Department of Soil & Crop Sciences, Colorado State University. While based in the USA, my entire 30 year career has been working with smallholder farmers and their communities. A few years ago I synthesized my career into the text "Developing smallholder agriculture: A global perspective", which is now available from Amazon. I also manage the website http://www.smallholderagriculture.com/ from which I hope to make various references during this e-conference. 

As an agronomist, my concerns for nutrition is how limited nutrition will impact on crop production and food security. My concern is that if you are expecting smallholder farmers to put in a full day of agronomic field work they need a daily diet of some 4000 kcal. Anything less and they will have to reduce their hours or the diligence of their effort. Unfortunately they usually have access to only half that amount. This will severely restrict the work day, prolong the period it takes to complete various agronomic tasks with corresponding loss in potential yield and food security. I think and seek comments and advise from this forum that until the farmers have access to the 4000 kcal their priority will be access to calories rather than seeking a more balanced diet. If not, their work day will be shortened and food insecurity will be increased.  

Part of this is a need to look at the operational feasibility of the innovations we propose for smallholders. This appears to be an administrative void between the biological and social scientists. Please visit the webpages below (*) from the mentioned website. You might even consider printing out the poster and posting it on your wall. It is not a pretty picture but a critical one. 

Continuing my introductory theme of operational feasibility, one perhaps novel way to define smallholders could be their operational resources and how that might impact on farm size. In this case:

1. Hoe, when confined to hoes the land size would be restricted to 1.5 ha at most, and that poorly managed as it will take up to 8 weeks for the farmers to complete basic crop establishment. By this time, the Time of Planting decline will make it improbable they will even come close to meeting food security needs. The bottom line is you cannot hoe your way out of poverty! 

2. Enhance this to access to contract tillage for basic land preparation and the prospects improve immensely, and you have a reasonable chance to meet food security needs plus diversify into value chain crops. This mostly from more timely planting and not taking into consideration the potential to expand the area cultivated.

3. Similarly, look at what happened in Thailand with the shift from water buffalo to power tillers, this more than halved the crop establishment period and, with rice security established, the farmers diversified into such things as poultry over fish ponds. Case study on this at: http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/basic-premise-was-something-overlooked/ One might also consider that as Thailand became one of the Asian Tiger economies, you could have land ownership continue to fragment with inheritance while actual operational holding expanded. As people moved to more economically valued jobs in the cities, they left the land to their siblings under a share cropping arrangement so shortly after harvest they would return to the village to get a few bags of rice as their share, most likely 30% of the yield. 

Just an alternative means of defining smallholder farmers.

Richard L. Tinsley
Dept. of Soil & Crop Sciences
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
USA
Phone: +1-970-225-6249
Fax: +1-970-491-0564
Email: Richard.Tinsley (at) colostate.edu

Reference: Tinsley, R.L. Developing smallholder agriculture: A global perspective. AgBé Publishing http://www.smallholderagriculture.com/ 

* 
http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/OperationalFeasibility.pdf  
http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/calorie-energy-balance-risk-averse-or-hunger-exhasution/  
http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/DietPoster.pdf 

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