IFPRI director asks World Farmers’ Organization to take realistic view of smallholders
July 01, 2015 |10:24 PM
MILAN — Many international forums on agriculture and development take a romantic view of smallholder farms: that all of them should be saved and that movement of farm men and women and their children to the cities should be discouraged.
But at the World Farmers’ Organization General Assembly here last week, Shenggen Fan, director general of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, proposed that some farm children should be encouraged to move off the farm so that others in their family could have a better life.
Shenggen Fan speaks to the World Farmers’ Organization meeting in Milan. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
Fan used his own family as an example. Forty years ago, Fan said, he and his family including two brothers were small farmers in China. He and one brother left and got an education, which allowed the third brother to do better as a farmer.
“If two brothers move out, one brother left behind can move up,” Fan said. The real public policy question, he added, is “How can we help [that farmer] move up?”
In his work, Fan said, he will always stand up for small farmers, but that “public policy should support small family farms in either moving [them] up to commercially oriented and profitable farming systems or moving out of agriculture to seek nonfarm employment opportunities.”
Fan, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Nanjing Agricultural University in China and a doctoral degree in applied economics from the University of Minnesota before joining IFPRI as a research fellow in 1995, said that policymakers need to determine the right policies to help smallholders.
Smallholders are vulnerable to climate change and to price volatility, he said, noting that while commodity prices are down, fertilizer prices are still up.
The Ebola crisis in Africa is responsible for the loss of “billions and billions” in agricultural value, he said.
Basing his remarks on a paper he co-authored with two other researchers, Fan said that farm size varies so much from country to country that it is impossible to develop a one-size-fits-all global strategy for smallholders.
The paper, entitled “Helping Small Family Farmers to Move Up or Move Out,” said there are five areas in which smallholders around the world need help:
The authors acknowledge that their “move up” or “move out” strategy won’t work as well in countries where non-farm growth is weak as where the non-farm sectors are booming.
“Optimal farm size is a dynamic concept that changes as a country’s overall economy grows and as nonagricultural sectors develop,” they wrote.
Fan told the WFO members he would like to help them “bring millions to your organizations” to argue for their political rights.
He said smallholder farmers need to be fairly compensated when land is taken for urbanization and when they play a role in achieving social goals such as mitigating climate change.
Finally, Fan said, farmers need “social protection in crisis,” whether its weather, climate change or market forces.
Fan’s ideas seemed to well accepted at a conference that mixed farmers from the developed and developing countries.
Farm leaders from Africa and the Caribbean said there needs to be a “space” within WFO for smallholder farmers, but another farm leader said that the smallest farmers will disappear over time because the youth will refuse to weed by hand and do the other grueling farm work when they can move to the cities.
There seemed to be little or no resistance to mechanization from the developing-country farmers.
WFO President Evelyn Nguleka, a Zambian veterinarian and poultry grower, said smallholder farmers “need technology so you don’t have to spend all the time in the field. As a wife and mother I have other things to do. I need mechanization so I can be able to spread my time.”
But at the World Farmers’ Organization General Assembly here last week, Shenggen Fan, director general of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, proposed that some farm children should be encouraged to move off the farm so that others in their family could have a better life.
Shenggen Fan speaks to the World Farmers’ Organization meeting in Milan. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)Fan used his own family as an example. Forty years ago, Fan said, he and his family including two brothers were small farmers in China. He and one brother left and got an education, which allowed the third brother to do better as a farmer.
“If two brothers move out, one brother left behind can move up,” Fan said. The real public policy question, he added, is “How can we help [that farmer] move up?”
In his work, Fan said, he will always stand up for small farmers, but that “public policy should support small family farms in either moving [them] up to commercially oriented and profitable farming systems or moving out of agriculture to seek nonfarm employment opportunities.”
Fan, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Nanjing Agricultural University in China and a doctoral degree in applied economics from the University of Minnesota before joining IFPRI as a research fellow in 1995, said that policymakers need to determine the right policies to help smallholders.
Smallholders are vulnerable to climate change and to price volatility, he said, noting that while commodity prices are down, fertilizer prices are still up.
The Ebola crisis in Africa is responsible for the loss of “billions and billions” in agricultural value, he said.
Basing his remarks on a paper he co-authored with two other researchers, Fan said that farm size varies so much from country to country that it is impossible to develop a one-size-fits-all global strategy for smallholders.
The paper, entitled “Helping Small Family Farmers to Move Up or Move Out,” said there are five areas in which smallholders around the world need help:
- Institutional reforms to facilitate the efficient transfer of land through the certification of land rights and through well-functioning and transparent land-rental and sales markets.
- Better access to risk-management tools and strategies to increase their resilience to a spectrum of shocks, including weather and price shocks.
- Linking small family farms to modern agrifood value chains.
- Addressing the gender inequity that reduces the access to productive resources, services, and markets for female farmers and beginning farmers.
- Productive cross-sector social safety nets that combine long-term agricultural productivity increases with short-term social safety support to provide a cushion against shocks.
The authors acknowledge that their “move up” or “move out” strategy won’t work as well in countries where non-farm growth is weak as where the non-farm sectors are booming.
“Optimal farm size is a dynamic concept that changes as a country’s overall economy grows and as nonagricultural sectors develop,” they wrote.
Fan told the WFO members he would like to help them “bring millions to your organizations” to argue for their political rights.
He said smallholder farmers need to be fairly compensated when land is taken for urbanization and when they play a role in achieving social goals such as mitigating climate change.
Finally, Fan said, farmers need “social protection in crisis,” whether its weather, climate change or market forces.
Fan’s ideas seemed to well accepted at a conference that mixed farmers from the developed and developing countries.
Farm leaders from Africa and the Caribbean said there needs to be a “space” within WFO for smallholder farmers, but another farm leader said that the smallest farmers will disappear over time because the youth will refuse to weed by hand and do the other grueling farm work when they can move to the cities.
There seemed to be little or no resistance to mechanization from the developing-country farmers.
WFO President Evelyn Nguleka, a Zambian veterinarian and poultry grower, said smallholder farmers “need technology so you don’t have to spend all the time in the field. As a wife and mother I have other things to do. I need mechanization so I can be able to spread my time.”
