International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Farm Africa and Self Help Africa

Summary

Although successful in focusing the world’s attention on achievable developmental targets, the Millennium Declaration ignored the challenge of rural poverty and the fundamental role smallholder farmers could play in tackling that poverty and ending hunger. In 2012, rural communities still lag behind their urban counterparts on many of the targets set in 2000. Farm Africa and Self-Help Africa believe that rural communities and smallholder farmers are, however, crucial to tackling poverty and hunger and must be at the forefront of the post-2015 development agenda. The parameters of the future goals are unclear but they need to include goals and targets that help reorient donors and governments towards rural development and agriculture as a source and central component of ending hunger and poverty and of promoting inclusive economic growth.

Recommendations from Farm Africa and Self-Help Africa

Future goals must reflect the interconnectedness of development issues and avoid splitting themes to look for separate solutions: hunger, climate change and resilience are deeply linked, just as hunger impacts health, nutrition and education.

The post-2015 development agenda must recognise the need for long-term solutions to hunger that allow for effective agricultural growth and the development of food systems to meet the needs of the poor.

Future goals should continue to have a headline goal on hunger and the targets for that goal should acknowledge the role of smallholder farmers in tackling poverty and hunger by producing and selling nutritious food and push for them to have the support they need to do this effectively.

The key role of women in smallholder agriculture must be recognised, and the need to empower women smallholder farmers must be embedded in all goals if global hunger is to be reduced.

Targets and indicators should not focus solely on increasing demand and adding value to crops, but on improving nutrition.

The targets for other goals should reflect the vulnerability of smallholder farmers and those dependent on scarce natural resources to climate change and the need to build resilience.

Smallholder farmer groups and persons dependent on scarce natural resources must be involved in the country level consultations on the future goals.

Any set of goals relating to the private sector should recognise the need to promote innovative partnerships, a sound environment and suitable support for rural enterprises, and include a commitment to supply good quality and affordable inputs to smallholder farmers, as well as the development of supply chains that provide long-term benefits to the smallholders that are incorporated within them. Markets must work for the poor.

The post-2015 agenda must reflect promises already made by Governments but not realised.

Background

Lessons learned from the MDGs

1. The Millennium Declaration failed to acknowledge the challenge of rural poverty and the role of agriculture, and smallholder farmers in particular, in producing the food necessary to tackle hunger and under-nutrition.

2. While over 300 million people have been taken out of poverty since 2000, the target on hunger will not be achieved. Recent food crises have reinforced the need for concerted action in which smallholder farmers, the private sector, and governments all have a central role to play.

3. Rural communities lag behind their urban counterparts on many of the MDG targets. For example, according to the MDG report 2012: children living in rural areas are almost twice as likely to be underweight than children in urban households and young adolescents from rural households are more likely to be out of school. Child mortality is higher and access to water and sanitation lower.

4. In Africa, 65% of the population (80% in some countries) rely on smallholder agriculture for their living. Increasing their income is therefore central to tackling poverty. They also have a crucial role to play in producing food and ending hunger. Yet in the 12 years since the MDGs were created, smallholder agriculture has failed to receive sufficient support from donors. The 2003 African Union Maputo Declaration directed all AU member countries to increase investment in the agriculture sector to at least 10% of the national budget. Yet, by 2007, 50% of the countries spent less than 5% of their national expenditure on agriculture development—a decrease from 57% in 2003.1

5. Women smallholders comprise an average of 43% of the agricultural labour force of developing countries. Of those women in the least developed countries who report being economically active, 79% of them identify agriculture as their primary economic activity; the global figure is 48%.2 Yet, despite many communities’ dependence on women to grow food, women often lack access to productive assets, such as land, and services, such as extension services, credit, quality inputs, that can enhance farm productivity. Moreover, as women are more likely than men to spend the income they earn on food, healthcare and education for their family as a whole, their lack of access to assets hampers their ability to lift themselves and their families out of both poverty and hunger. Women farmers could grow 30% more food if they had access to the same resources as men. By helping women farmers boost production, we could reduce global hunger by 150 million people.3

6. Targets were set under MDG 7 to tackle deforestation, but while the rate of deforestation is showing signs of decreasing, it is still alarmingly high. A decisive response to climate change is urgently needed. This should include collective responses to the management of natural resources, recognising the vital role of indigenous peoples, and explore financial mechanisms to protect natural habitats such as carbon pricing.

7. The MDGs largely ignored the role of the private sector. Smallholder farmers are part of the private sector. Increased access to food is dependent on building commercial service provision: enhancing value chains and creating and improving markets. Becoming part of the supply chains of larger private sector actors can be one route to market access for smallholder farmers.

8. It has been suggested that there may be greater attention given to the private sector in future goals and targets—or even that there should be a separate set for the private sector. If so, these should recognise the importance of creating supply chains that provide sustainable and long-term benefits to smallholder farmers. DFID’s £1 billion per annum contribution to support the establishment of an African Free Trade Initiative (AFTRI) is a good example of an initiative that could benefit millions, including smallholder farmers, by improving trade infrastructure to support the creation of regional markets for agricultural goods and products. DANIDA and the Dutch Government have also funded private-public partnerships that promote access to markets for smallholder farmers across Africa.

9. The simplicity and focus of the MDGs is one of their main benefits. However, the “silo” approach of splitting up issues meant that the focus was on the problems rather than the solutions and that long-term and complex issues were oversimplified. Farm Africa and Self Help Africa are not calling for a significant expansion in the goals: rather for better focused targets that harness existing global commitments, reflect the interconnectedness of issues, and acknowledge the importance of smallholder farmers.

The Process and Targets

10. For there to be a reduction in under-nutrition, the composition of agricultural growth, distribution, and the conditions under which growth takes place must be considered holistically. Growth in agricultural sub-sectors where poor people are engaged, such as staple crops, contributes more to reducing poverty and increasing calorie intake than growth in, for instance, export crops. With drought continuing to affect several parts of Africa and food prices expected to rise due to reduced harvest, now is the time to leverage agriculture as a tool to reduce malnutrition, and not simply a source of income and food for vulnerable persons. New goals and targets must consider food availability (production, distribution, exchange), access to food (affordability, allocation, preference) and food utilisation (nutritional value, social value and food safety) together. Agricultural projects born out of new goals and targets must include nutrition-specific measurable objectives.

11. International donors have made a series of commitments to support food security and improved agricultural productivity and nutrition, such as those under the 2009 l’Aquila Food Security Initiative and subsequently under the 2012 New Alliance for Food and Nutrition. The process and the final post-2015 documents need to reflect and build on those commitments.

12. There are no short-term fixes to hunger. Any new goals and targets must avoid eliciting short-term solutions: rather, there is a need to provide long-term investment in agriculture so appropriate food systems can effectively develop.

13. There should continue to be a goal on hunger. Continued problems in access to sufficient and nutritious food at the right price means that the focus on hunger should be continued if not increased. The role of smallholder farmers, and in particular women farmers, in producing food and the need to support them should be reflected in the targets for that goal and any others on economic growth.

14. A lack of progress in rural areas is one of the key factors limiting progress against the MDGs. Revised MDGs and targets should capture the need to focus on rural areas and accelerate progress, capturing the role of smallholder agriculture in achieving this. Goals on the environment and climate change should also reflect the role of people dependent on scarce resources in managing natural resources and protecting the environment and the link between poverty, hunger, bio-diversity loss and sustainable development and climate change. Targets must include a commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

15. There is a clear overlap between hunger, climate change and resilience: Farm Africa and Self Help Africa believe that environment and hunger cannot be separated as under the original MDGs. Investing in climate smart agriculture to support smallholder farmers to build resilience and better adapt to the effects of climate change is therefore crucial. Embedding REDD+ as a forest conservation strategy as well as supporting forest dependent communities to develop their own natural resources plans should be embedded in future goals and targets.

16. Any set of goals relating to the private sector should recognise the need to promote a sound environment and suitable support for rural enterprises and should include a commitment to the development of supply chains that provide long-term benefits to the smallholders that are incorporated within them.

17. In the context of post-2015 thinking, governments, donors, NGOs and others must be prepared to explore innovative financing mechanisms and partnerships that can support the goals both directly and indirectly. Financing mechanisms that promote growth must be pro-poor and focused on smallholder agriculture. For example, encouraging private investment or sovereign wealth funds to look at infrastructure development, including roads, would support smallholder farmers to get their goods to markets more easily and over greater distances. Lowering costs on remittance transmissions would help harness this vast resource (in 2011 remittances to developing countries were worth $325 billion) towards development and the poorest communities in the particular. Public/private partnerships should also be encouraged to enhance knowledge and technology sharing. Gaps in funding could be bridged through private sector guarantees or co-financing. Such options, however, should not be considered as an alternative to ODA, but work alongside aid spending to help target the most vulnerable.

Conclusion

18. Farm Africa and Self Help Africa strongly believe in the need for a concerted, collaborative and innovative approach to the post-2015 development agenda. Recognising the inter-connectedness of development issues and striving to reach long-term solutions that take into account the linkages between issues and the mutual impact they have on each other is key to achieving development. To tackle poverty and hunger, much greater focus must be placed on supporting smallholder farmers, particularly women farmers, not only to increase productivity but build resilience. Partnerships between governments, NGOs, the private sector and civil society will be vital to achieving change and channelling engines of growth. But, such partnerships must be pro-poor and smallholder farmer focused. Ultimately, the post-2015 development agenda must recognise that short term-fixes will not achieve development: long-term solutions are the key to sustainability.

October 2012