“2014: International Year of Family Farming”: Gimmick or precedent to change current production models?
Last
November, The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2014 as the
International Year of Family Farming. While many leaders and
institutions strove for 12 months to put family farming at the forefront
of agricultural policies and and to increase public awareness through
events around the world, many environmental activists and international
solidarity organizations are skeptical about the real added value of
this temporary spotlight. So is it a gimmick or a precedent to change
current production models? Here is a look at one of the key SOLIDARITÉ
themes currently prey to many threats...
Family
farming is not a new developmentalist trend or the whim of a few
pre-modern nostalgics: it is an economic, social, and environmental
necessity.
First of all, what is family farming?
As
its name implies, family farming is based on the family being the holder
of the land and the producer, in order to ensure food sovereignty and
to supply the local market. Although the foundation is the same, its
expression takes on very different realities, from the large farm of
hundreds of acres as we know it in France, to small subsistence plots in
Africa, through the peasants seeking land in India.
Today,
family farming is suffering from a lack of legitimacy in the eyes of
policymakers, and even the public, as it is considered outdated and of
low economic efficiency. In fact, who has never heard that
it is not with “small” under-mechanized and low productivity
agriculture that we will feed the planet? Furthermore, public
development aid has gradually been diverted from agriculture in the last
decades: it now represents only 2% of funds allocated to countries of the South, as compared to 16% in 1980, and very few of the agricultural sector subsidies benefit family farming.
Not
only is this basic premise completely false (it is entirely possible to
feed the world with family farming), but the direction we are taking
seems dangerous and is leading us to a dead-end. In fact, today more
than ever, it is necessary to invest in family farming in order to
reduce poverty, inequality, and environmental imbalances.
Explanation of the virtues of an unfamiliar model
Family
farming is firstly based on a large workforce able to develop the land:
it creates employment and generates income. Moreover, as it is firmly
grounded in its territory and uses environmentally respectful methods,
family farming contributes to the dynamism of rural areas, to the sound
management of resources, and to agricultural biodiversity and ecosystem
conservation. Finally, beyond the unfair nature of the financial markets
and food commodity speculation, it resists price volatility and
contributes to food security in developing countries.
According to the latest FAO State of Food and Agriculture report, countries with strong agricultural
public spending orientation have low malnutrition rates, and
conversely, countries with low public investment in agriculture have
high rates of malnutrition. Thus, the verdict is clear: As we face
strong demographic growth and rising global food demand, family farming is the only remedy against food insecurity and deadly famines.
If
this is the case, why are the countries in the Sahel region, which are
still characterized by a significant number of small family farms, also
the most affected by malnutrition? This is because food insecurity
issues are not linked to production shortfalls, but to income issues, to
the choice of crop systems, and to food access, all of which heavily
depend on policies in the areas of access to land, trade, and product
subsidies. This set of measures must accompany family farming in order
for it to fulfill its nourishment role.
Family
farming cannot be successful without a radical change in both national
and international policies on trade, access to land, and price
regulation.
CAP et WTO; when agricultural trade liberalization slowly kills family farms
We often forget certain parameters in the
management policies of a family farm. Let’s take the example of some
West African crops. Access to land and markets are sometimes guaranteed
for families of producers, but production falls solely within the
framework of certain export sectors (coffee, cocoa, cotton, bananas), thus
limiting the possibility of food sovereignty and directly threatening
family income when prices collapse on the international market.
It takes no more than one shock, for example a
collapse of prices, or a change in consumption patterns or European
policies, for producers to lose their only source of income, and be
plunged into poverty, especially since the devastating effects of
chemically-intensive monocultures on soil fertility have been
recognized. There are abundant examples illustrating the failure of the
current model.
If family farms hold, as we have seen, immense
potential to meet the challenges of food security, social equity and
biodiversity protection, in order to harness this potential, it is
essential for states to define and apply agricultural and economic
policies that are radically different from those currently in place, primarily the rules of international trade.
Popular uprisings should impose the advent of a new system
Under the aegis of the WTO, which will soon
celebrate its 20th anniversary, the priority has so far been given to
import/export at the expense of local trade and family farming[1].
As a direct consequence of this, between 2003 and 2010, the EU lost 20%
of its agricultural holdings, most of which were family farms. In the
context of agricultural products trade liberalization and of the
concentration of production on large farms in the North and the South,
the share of imported food has increased and the volatility of food
prices affects urban and rural populations every day. In many southern
countries, we have seen food riots erupt in recent years, true signs people’s desperation, who no longer have access to basic food commodities, due to an uncontrollable rise in prices.
In addition, institutions and citizens should
seize the opportunity of the International Year of Family Farming to
challenge the set of rules that have helped create an unfair system and
to fight against the growing land grabbing issue. Otherwise, it may be
the farmers and not malnutrition that will disappear.
SOLIDARITÉ and family farming: action on all the links in the chain
SOLIDARITÉ’s projects aim to act on all aspects of family farming mentioned above.
First of all, access to land.
SOLIDARITÉ strives to bring to light and combat the glaring inequalities with regards to access to land by supporting the Ekta Parishad organization
in its fight for the redistribution of land in India, particularly
through peaceful marches, by participating in the class action against
land grabbing, and by regularly organizing awareness-raising events on
the theme of land rights.
Secondly, give farmers the means to produce locally.
The fight seems futile if one has land without
any access to traditional seeds nor alternative methodologies to the
current productionist model. SOLIDARITÉ supports its partners in the
distribution of natural crop inputs and by providing training in organic
farming. Led by Navdanya in the north-east of India, the "Seeds of
Hope" projects aims to improve the sustainable livelihoods of small
farming communities through the preservation of traditional seeds. In
southern India, the Bio-schools project allows students to create
gardens, which allow them to better understand the importance of a
healthy diet.
Create opportunities for local food crops
Aside
from the support it provides to its partners to return to more
nourishing and environmentally respectful subsistence crops, SOLIDARITÉ
helps them consider alternatives to the processing and marketing of
local agricultural products. The project to valorize local grains in
Senegal was established with this in mind. The goal of the project is to
replace wheat with local grains in the production of bread and cakes (a
30-50% substitution rate is possible using our specific methods), which
provides prospects for the production of local farmers’ grains.
Raise awareness among policy makers and the general public about the need to save family farming
Through
its involvement in awareness-raising groups and campaigns alongside its
partners in the North and South and the organization of “themed
apéritifs” or other conferences/debates, SOLDARITÉ is conscious that an
overall change in the agricultural model will not occur without adequate
awareness-raising resulting in an overturn in attitudes. Thanks to the
support of its volunteer experts, the organization is constantly
strengthening its advocacy activities surrounding access to land,
agricultural and trade policies, and the spread of community
and organic production systems. With this in mind, the organization is
involved with the CAP 2013 group supporting a new European agricultural
policy that would preserve the agricultural economy in the countries of
the south.
The
work that SOLIDARITÉ does, along with thousands of other civil society
organizations involved in family farming, reflects the growing gap
between the awareness of the necessary paradigm shift and current
policies, still locked in the shackles of a model that has proven ineffective to solve the world’s food problems.
The International Year of Family Farming could be the opportunity to reverse this trend. Let’s seize it!
To know more about projects at SOLIDARITÉ, click here!
To support our priority projects, click here!
Justine, volunteer with SOLIDARITÉ
Translated into English by Dagmara Bojenko
[1] Note by the organization: Although India’s acceptance to create a food safety stock at the last conference in Bali has opened opportunities, this would represent a breach for DCs to change the international rules in this regard
http://solidarite.asso.fr/2014-International-Year-of-Family
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