'Smallholder farmers are on the front lines of climate change'
A large part of the world’s food is produced by smallholder farmers. But why they have remained economically disadvantaged?
It is a tragic irony that smallholders grow much of the developing world’s food but often go hungry themselves. They have long been left out of the mainstream of economic growth, development, and government policies because governments did not give priority to agriculture as the engine of economic growth.
Smallholders need access to water and land, rural finance, markets and credit and information about prices.
They also need an enabling policy environment, a supportive infrastructure and incentives to make business competitive.
Lack of these are the main reasons for their marginalisation. What methods/policies are best for uplifting smallholder farmers?
Improve smallholders´ access to improved seeds and other inputs, ownership of the land they farm, build their capacity to link with markets
Strengthen infrastructure of agriculture.
Provide them with the means and incentives to manage their land sustainably in the face of climate change, and create an enabling policy environment for all of these changes.
How many people worldwide have benefitted from these methods?
The number of beneficiaries from improvements in agriculture is in the millions worldwide. It includes not only smallholders and their communities, but also the urban populations that depend on them for their food.
Globally, the number of chronically undernourished people has declined to just under 800 million.
How important is the role of cooperatives in improving the economic status and scientific knowledge of smallholder farmers?
Producer organisations play an absolutely vital role in enabling rural people to seize new economic opportunities.
They allow numerous small producers to aggregate their product so that they can supply modern value chains, and give them power to advocate for themselves in dealing with other players in the food system.
They can be a conduit for access to knowledge through training, cultivation of leadership, and access to finance and inputs.
Climate change continues to threaten agriculture, with small famers being more vulnerable to it. What can be done in the future to climate-proof crop production at small scale?
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change was a watershed moment in the fight against this threat.
Channelling climate finance to smallholders: so that they can access the information and technologies they need to build resilience.
Capacity building of farmer associations, women’s groups, and extension services to adopt and promote climate-smart technologies, such as biogas and drought- and flood-resistant crop varieties. Smallholder farmers are on the front lines of climate change but often lack the resources and resilience to cope, so building their capacity is absolutely important.
