Dr. Sibanda discussed the key principle of the Farming First plan as well as highlighting recent work of her own organisation FANRPAN on identifying the most vulnerable households in villages for targeted support.  She discusses how African countries are spending $19 billion each year on the import of key staple foods despite the fact that 70% of the population is smallholder farmers with the potential to grow their own food.

Dr. Sibanda argues for the need to improve productivity in a sustainable way.  Knowledge transfer and investment in infrastructure and resource management skills are key in achieving this.  For instance, many farmers use recycled seeds which yield only 10% of the harvest that new seeds would bring.

Under these principles, agricultural policy should aim to help farmers eventually ’self-help’ and become self-sufficient.

Listen to the full broadcast of Dr Sibanda here:

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Watch the video:

Mr Mwale was also interviewed by BBC’s World Business News.

Listen to the BBC interview audio file here:

Mr. Mwale also presented a speech on the successes of the programme at the UN Commission for Sustainable Development on 14 May 2009. In his speech, he discusses why and how agriculture should be put back at the center of the development agenda. He also notes how the Farming First principles align well with the programme Malawi has been following to date:

…this achievement came about because the Government of Malawi made a choice to prioritize the agricultural sector. This allowed the Government and various cooperating partners to increase investments in inputs provision, extension service delivery and agricultural research. This notwithstanding, the Government still believes that more investments in agricultural research, local based capacity building, irrigation development and marketing are necessary to spur increased and sustain production in the medium to long term. This is consistent with the Farming First principles of the partners hosting us tonight.

For the full text:

Download the speech (pdf)

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Gerda Verburg, Chairperson of the Commission and the Netherlands’ Minister of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality, said of the outcome:

Nothing less is needed than a revolution in ideas and a revolution in technologies, supported by a revolution in trade policies and market access and the financial means to implement.

The final plan stressed the central importance of farmers – particularly women farmers and rural communities – to deliver such a paradigmatic shift in the agricultural sector.

According to the final press release issued on the CSD-17  final text, This could be done by

employing science-based approaches and local indigenous knowledge; expanding investment incentives, in particular for small farmers; and encouraging and supporting safge integrated pest management.

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Sylvie Lucas, Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the UN, Pdt of ECOSOC:

We know that 75% of the world’s poor live in rural areas and most of them depend directly on agriculture. The poor were the first to be affected by the food crisis, which added 115million people to the ranks of hunger in 2007 and 2008. Early indications are that the economic and financial crisis could bring the total number of hungry past one billion.

First, current agricultural practices will not allow us to meet the food needs and consumption patterns of a growing and developing world population, let alone in a sustainable way. Investments in new technologies are needed to support a shift toward a more sustainable agricultural and food production system.

Multidimensional challenges require an integrated approach, combining economic, social and environmental solutions. We see that the Commission on Sustainable Development is uniquely placed to take on this challenge, as the very aim of sustainable development is to apply this integrated approach.

It provides an effective platform to bring together and foster dialogue between Governments, the UN systems, the policy research community and Major Groups. I trust that this session will produce clear deliverables and concrete actions to learn lessons from the global food crisis and tackle the hunger and malnutrition challenge, within the sustainable development framework.

(emphasis added)

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At a recent side event of the UN CSD-17, 71 delegates and members of major groups from more than 20 countries came together to define their specific issues and to hear their perspectives on effective capacity building actions. The event format included a brief presentation providing context, followed by round table discussions (90 minutes). The discussion focused on the cross cutting issues of Capacity Building and the three infrastructures (Social, Physical and Economic) as they relate to African (and other) rural sustainable development.

Capacity Building can be defined as:

“The building of human, institutional and infrastructure capacity to help societies develop secure, stable and sustainable economies, governments and other institutions through mentoring, training, education, physical projects, the infusion of financial and other resources, and most importantly, the motivation and inspiration of people to improve their lives.”

Results and Recommended Actions
A brief summary of participant contributions are noted below.

Common Rural Issues & Recommended Capacity Building Actions:

•    Rural migration to cities is eroding food development capacity for many countries, which results in the need to import food. Solutions are needed to establish jobs for farmers and their families to remain in rural communities.
•    Farmers are often the least educated;  90% are women; their farming techniques are extremely rudimentary and minimally effective. Education and systematic farming technologies are needed to boost food production and to keep youth on the farms.
•    Governments do not provide sufficient support to farmers, but focus their attention on the cities.  An organization of farmers & government relations is needed to boost food production and address farmer capacity shortfalls.
•    There is no “check list” to confirm the existence of new infrastructure or to measure & guide progress. Farmers should be given the means to define what they “need” in terms of capacity building.
•    Donor fund governance is extremely weak; corruption is a drawback. Effective governance and internal control practices are needed and must be transparent, accountable and participatory.
•    Uninformed government workers make poor choices for farmers. Government training is needed in all capacity building aspects (social, physical and economic infrastructures).
•    Diverse developed countries help, but there is no coordination to optimize the collective impact and outcome in the recipient country.
•    A huge capacity building void is created when women are not consulted on capacity development initiatives. Initiatives are often failures because women as the key element of familiar farming structures are not consulted. Effective facilitated engagement processes are required.

A sampling of specific recommendations for actions that were discussed is given below:

•    In a given location, 40,000 chickens are grown, but there are no storage & production facilities for chicken harvesting and marketing. Food is wasted & economic opportunities lost.   Action needed: Create infrastructure to manage loss reduction such as abattoir and meat storage facilities, and develop chicken markets.

•    Climate has changed and temperatures rising; existing seeds are no longer appropriate for climate conditions. Action needed: Provide seeds that grow effectively in changed climate.

•    Government/Farmer relationship management processes do not exist. Action needed:  Implement stakeholder management and strategy development processes.

•    Supply system technologies do exist but are not applied, i.e. In a given location, farmers know how to maximize the growing of oranges and mangos but lack the knowledge on how to produce and store juice. Action needed: Provide training for the application of these technologies.

•    Multiple government and stakeholder roles are unclear; they cannot work together effectively. Action needed:  Implement stakeholder management processes.

•    Lack of resources to access proprietary technologies limits the farmer’s ability to learn and develop capacity. Action needed: Provide access to open source technologies or fund proprietary technology transfer.

•    In a given place, electrical power infrastructure reliability is very poor; power outages that last for 3 to 4 days are common.  Action needed:  Upgrade infrastructure, provide reliable power supply, and implement training in system operation & maintenance. Include women in the training programs.

•    Ecosystems are degrading. Action needed: Implement ecosystem safeguard strategies.

•    Capacity building needs to involve service training. Action needed: Identify roles to involve local people in projects, assure gender balance and consider characteristics of local culture.

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Madam Chair, Distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am Dr. Sarala Gopalan, a farmer from India. I am speaking on behalf of a multi-disciplinary team: Farmers, Science and Technology, and Business who have joined together calling for a new model for agriculture based on knowledge and people – Farming First.

After too many years of neglect of agriculture in national policies, Farming First returns farmers to the centre of policy decisions. Governments, businesses, scientists, engineers, and civil society groups must focus their attention and prioritize the source of global food security in all development efforts.

Farming First is not just words; it is a real partnership to enhance complementarities to achieve sustainable agriculture and a better livelihood in rural areas.

The six pillars of Farming First are about the inter-linkages and continuous cycle of resources, knowledge and tools for farmers to use sustainable agricultural practices.

As CSD-17 discusses inter-linkages, we would like to stress that Farming First promotes an integrated approach which is more than agriculture. We truly believe that focusing on farming is a key mechanism to foster economic and social development for millions of individuals and food security for all.

1) Safeguarding natural resources is the first pillar of the Farming First concept. It emphasizes the importance of land and water management, which should be improved through the widespread adoption of sustainable practices of land use, including conservation tillage and other techniques.  Our coalition agrees strongly with the need stated by the women’s major group to ensure proper land tenure rights for women in particular.

2) The second pillar is Sharing knowledge. We need to put in place an improved mechanism for  extension services – which are neither “top down” nor “bottom up” but truly collaborative.  Demonstration projects can harmonize global research and best practices with existing local knowledge, including that of indigenous people.

3) Building local access to ensure that farmers have access to resources to manage their production more efficiently with emphasis on capacity building, with the support of appropriate infrastructure – particularly roads, ports, and existing technology – to make supplies available in rural communities and to allow access to markets as highlighted during the side event held by the engineers.

We also wish to join with our colleagues in the trade unions to stress the importance of decent work and training for farmers and agricultural workers.

4) Protecting harvests is the fourth pillar of Farming First. In many of the poorest countries, 20 to 40% of crop yields are lost because of inadequate pre- and post-harvest support. One of the most important ways to improve productivity is to minimise losses through local storage capacities and transportation mechanisms as well as provision of  risk management tools to protect farmers in the face of climate variations and market failures. We are eager to explore with the Youth Major Group, the opportunities to change unsustainable consumption patterns.  Food spoilage in the developing world and food waste in the developed world are equally problems.

5) Farming First aims at helping subsistence farmers to become small-scale entrepreneurs. Linking farmers to markets is essential, should we want to make them become real entrepreneurs. Farmers need to be able to get their produce on to the market and receive equitable price treatments for it. Both NGOs and local authorities have outlined the importance of developing fair markets.

6) Once products have been sold, we need to continually improve the cycle. Prioritising research imperatives is Farming First’s sixth and last pillar. Achieving sustainable agriculture requires applied research and available, appropriate technology, prioritising locally relevant crops and farmers’ needs, stewardship techniques, and adaptation to climate change. This will ensure that farmers’ needs are taken into account and that they benefit from continuously updated and improved tools and knowledge to enable them to successfully achieve all the other steps of the process.

Madam Chair, Farming First is about a process of continual improvement that applies to ALL forms of agricultural systems including organic, conventional and others.  Every system must be made more sustainable, today, tomorrow, and for centuries to come.

Please visit www.farmingfirst.org to lend your voice to our effort. In just a few weeks since we launched the site, 1300 individuals have already said they concur with the principles of Farming First.

Finally, Madam Chair, at the eve of the High Level Segment, we do not want the CSD to miss the opportunity to create a realistic, action-oriented text on agricultural and rural development.  With this is mind, we would like to ask the Ministers and Official country representatives what the prospects may be to achieve that goal, and what expectations you may have from Farming First partners for implementation following the negotiations?

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The chairperson of the event will be Leonard Mizzi, Head of Unit of the Agriculture Directorate General of the European Commission. Other speakers at the event include:

• Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO, FANRPAN
• Dr. James Hansen, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
• Serge Benstrong, President, Farmers’ Association of Seychelles
• Sarala Gopalan, Women’s Representative, National Institute of Agriculture of India
• Julie Howard, Executive Director, Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa
• Antonio Galindez, Vice President Crop Platform, Dow AgroSciences
• Thomas Rosswall, Chair, CGIAR-ESSP Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Challenge Programme

The event occurs at the start of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development final session, where UN policymakers will be finalising policy directions on the topics of: rural development, agriculture, land, drought, desertification, and Africa.

The event also includes a Q&A and a roundtable discussion with experts from various fields.

All UN delegates and UN-accredited journalists are invited to attend.

Download the invitation here:

Download the invitation (pdf)

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There is a need for a radical shift in thinking which places the farmer at the centre of a new approach. New investments, incentives and innovations are needed to achieve greater sustainability while delivering increased agricultural production. This needs to be backed-up by a stable policy framework and investment strategy which assists farmers – and particularly smallholder farmers – to sustain both themselves and the world’s growing population. The kind of change proposed in Farming First’s call to action which puts farmers at the heart of the solution.

As the G8 declaration has rightly recognised, “agriculture and food security are at the heart of the international agenda”. Commenting before the meeting, United States Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, said:

This is not just about food security, this is about national security, it is about environmental security…

I can figure out there are only three things that could happen if people do not have food: people could riot, that they have done; people migrate to places where there is food, which creates additional challenges; or people die.

Much of what was said in the G8 ministers’ final declaration echoes the call made by the coalition supporting Farming First. The Farming First plan is based on six principles: safeguarding natural resources; sharing knowledge; building local access; protecting harvests; enabling access to markets; and prioritising research imperatives.

The final declaration called for “enhanced support including investments in agricultural science, research, technology, education and innovation” as well as supporting “efforts against wastage along the food chain in developing countries” and identifiying “the necessity to provide smallholder farming access to land, credit, technical assistance, education and crop insurance, as well as allowing family farmers to have access to local and international markets was underlined.”

Host minister, Italy’s Luca Zaia, told the post-meeting press conference:

Food security requires targeted policies to guarantee effective management and sustainable utilization of natural resources involving local communities in accordance with their identities… We commit ourselves to increasingly share technology, processes and ideas with other countries.

China’s vice minister of agriculture, Niu Dun, told the G8 meeting that the international community:

should build up capacity in monitoring and conducting early-warning on global food security. Developing countries should intensify cooperation in food security, making it a critical platform for common response to food insecurity and financial crisis.

Further more detailed discussions will take place at the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in May and the full G8 summit in Italy in July. Hopefully, these meetings will culminate in what the world requires: real, financed commitments.

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Here are some of the top issues, organised according to each of the Farming First principles:

1. Safeguard natural resources

Key challenges:

- Lack of education/awareness – The public needs to be educated on what sustainable agriculture is. The education of farmers on the sound use of resources also needs to see improvements.
- Framing the issue – Common definitions for “sustainability”, “natural resources” and other terms need to be reassessed.
- Lack of economic incentives – There is a need to incentivize farmers to use sustainable farming techniques, without adding additional costs which cut into their livelihoods.

2. Share knowledge

Key challenges:

- Application of knowledge – knowledge is not applicable to different regions or contexts.
- Dissemination of knowledge – the way in which knowledge is shared or passed on is not appropriate to some context or acts as a restriction
- Access to knowledge – availability of and access to resources, particularly the internet as a major resource for information, is limited.
- Agribusiness and local farmer competition – competition between agri-businesses and local farmers for resources and knowledge can be an impediment. Participants stressed the need for greater coordination among related, overlapping sectors and fields of study within agriculture, business, and science and technology to provide a more holistic approach to agriculture.
- The role of governments – Bureaucracy is a major challenge to the dissemination of knowledge, constituting a strong disincentive for farmers and other stakeholders.  Additionally, food production and agriculture are often not priorities for governments, which limits the number of opportunities for knowledge sharing. Farmer-to-farmer learning should be strengthened in order to cope with this.
- Public image of agriculture – Agriculture does not generally have a positive image as an occupation, yet, as urbanization remains a growing trend, dependence on the remaining farmers is increasing.  The public perception of agriculture needs to be improved and its importance shared with policy-makers and urban populations so that food production and food security are fully understood and made a priority for policy makers and investors.  Agriculture as an industry also needs to coordinate with the technology sector in order to reach and educate younger generations with regards to this challenge

3. Build local access

Key challenges:

- Access to Microcredit/finance – is insufficient and limits farmers capacity to invest, grow and create real opportunities for themselves
- Access to knowledge – lack of access to education and/or research/knowledge is an impediment for farmers and impedes the adoption of best practices.
- Governance – poor governance, excessive bureaucracy and corruption are all major problems for farmers and limit their access to resources and to markets.

4. Protect harvests

Key challenges:

- A lack of education/knowledge among farmers – including inadequate knowledge post-production on food safety and on food storage
- A lack of local farmer coordination on crop growth -  As markets are flooded with particular goods in each season or if sales do not occur rapidly enough, large parts of the crop can be damaged and farmers face adverse conditions because of the glut.

5. Enable access to markets

Key challenges:

- Improving infrastructure – Insufficient transportation and poor infrastructure were common themes as to why farmers were unable to sell their crops once harvested.
- Trade barriers and access to foreign markets – Contributors agreed that constraints on access to markets were one of the most important challenges faced by farmer. It was agreed that farmers would gain far greater access to markets if tariff and trade barriers were eliminated, and they were able to compete on common ground in the global marketplace.  Farmers have goods to sell – they just need the policy and practical supports to buttress their efforts.

6. Prioritise research imperatives

Key challenges:

- Participatory setting – greater participation is required in research activities.  Despite the presence of integrated teams of researchers, it is believed that practitioners are being left out.  Research should include more groups and start from a bottom up approach where more information is collected from farmers.
- Dissemination of research – information should be more widely spread so that the international community can benefit from it.  More joint projects might encourage the sharing of research from advanced countries.
- Needs and resources of scientists and farmers – these two groups should play a bigger role in identifying research needs.  A global source of funding should be established for use by scientists and farmers.

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Vashee, President of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) and a practicing farmer in Zambia, discusses Farming First’s six core principles and the recent work that the group had been doing to present their priorities to policymakers at the UN Commission for Sustainable Development policy session.

Listen to the the audio file of the Farming First interview here:

Or, go to another recent blog post with a video of Ajay Vashee discussing the Farming First plan at a press conference.

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