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Poverty Reduction and Food Security through Sustainable Agriculture |
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Who
is poor?
After four decades of development, the world (including developing countries and major development finance institutions) has recognized the fact that the strategies of economic growth (1960s), income redistribution (1970s), economic adjustment (1980s), and economic and structural adjustment (1990s) have failed to alleviate poverty. This is just a food for thought for those who still believe that economic growth is the only sufficient condition to tackle with the poverty. Since I’m not an economist, let me say in simple words that in fact modernization (in search of increased comfort and lavishness) coupled with commercialism/capitalism have misleadingly led the world to an understanding that money is the only way to achieve prosperity and reduce poverty. I term it as poverty of mind. In the last four decades of development, this sort of approach in public policies, private segments of the society and, particularly, single-track plans of major finance institutions have actually aggravated the poverty. No doubt economic growth is necessary but not necessarily fundamental to alleviate poverty. Under this scenario, countries have faced several critical consequences as: 1. Instead of serving the nation, persons both in public as well as in the private sector became avaricious and they try their best to earn more and more money in a shorter period of time. It can be named as dirty business because, while doing so, they never hesitate to make use of unfair means and exploit other’s rights. 2. Countries has faced corrupt leaders and biased policies. As a consequence, few persons has bunch up unlimited wealth & power rendering masses to survive under conditions of extreme poverty. 3. Country laws have also become supportive to those who have secured wealth and power and troublesome for rest of the masses. 4. Another sector which encouraged tremendously, is the corporate sector. Today few of the multi-national companies (MNCs) have grown-up to the extent that they are actually controlling world’s resources and power. Budget of one MNC is sometimes greater than the budgets of majority of countries in the world. How can poverty be reduced? There are many theories why the third world countries are not developed. But the only and unique reason is that the indigenous socio-economic system of these countries has been neglected and excluded from the development and decision making processes. Thus, to reduce poverty and desire development, this system must be well understood and, in fact, there is a need to adopt realistic and sustainable approach. Poverty reduction cannot be achieved by money alone: creativity and self-confidence are needed as well. Hence, ‘sustainable ecological agriculture’[1] is an approach that can reduce poverty and enhance food security. Discussed below is sustainable agriculture with regards to poverty, however, its link with the food security is elaborated in the next chapter. To justify that ‘sustainable ecological agriculture’ approach can reduce poverty, let us see the realities on the ground. Out of estimated 1.2 billion poor people in the world (70 percent in Asia alone), a majority lives in rural areas. The incident of poverty is highest among rural poor especially in female-headed households and children. This is also true in Pakistan where almost 70 percent of population resides in villages. Hence, agriculture is their main occupation. Most of the rural poor are small and marginalized farmers, landless agricultural workers, fisherfolk, artisans, female-headed households, aged persons and children. By and large, small farmers are engaged in subsistence agriculture where their basic concern is survival and get ahead of life from farming. That is why the dimensions of their farms are most often more or less than one hectare and they usually grow multiple crops associated to their basic needs food, clothing and shelter. To satisfy the other needs (education, health…) farmers use to market the surplus of their crop yield. This clearly shows that agriculture for poor farmers is a way of life, rather than just an economic activity. As compared to concept of yield in the modern agricultural system that this much inputs will result into that much yields poor farmers do not own it. According to them yield of an agricultural activity can only be concluded seeing how better their level of subsistence is being satisfied. Hence, their social and cultural values are emotionally involved with agriculture.
Being an agriculturist, I have been working with the farming communities for last 10 years. According to my observation the way modern technologies are growing and agriculture is being commercialized, rural communities are gradually going down the poverty line and loosing their subsistence agriculture as well as their social and cultural values. It is now widely recognized that these technologies have benefited few of the giant landlords and, particularly, corporations involved in agriculture. As a result, rests of the farmers are gradually loosing their hold on agriculture due to the fact that they cannot afford increasing costs of modern inputs to compete. Consequently, a constantly alarming number of villagers are leaving their agricultural activities and migrating to and settling down in urban centers. After the migration, most of them live in slums and face difficulties in finding suitable jobs. Few of them are reported to be involved in criminal activities due to constant unemployment and poverty. Eventually, they have become a constant threat to social peace, political stability and country’s economic development. Perhaps due to these circumstances, developing world is not being able to achieve self-sufficiency and sustainable development. SDPI is an active member of a regional network ‘South Asian Network on Food, Ecology and Culture (SANFEC). Through this connection SDPI’s staff use to visit South Asian countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal and have good experience to stay with some NGOs working in the field of sustainable ecological agriculture. SDPI was lucky to learn some success stories there in which rural communities got united and re-gained their subsistence agriculture and prosperity by practicing sustainable ecological agriculture. In the beginning, they worked hard to recover their soil’s fertility by using on-farm natural resources and started growing various indigenous crops organically. While doing so, they strictly avoided use of agro-chemicals, new hybrid crop varieties and even the heavy farm machinery. As a result, their cost of crop production has considerably decreased, whereas, yields were also competitive. The produce, as compared to those who use all the modern agricultural inputs, is also purchased at relatively better price in the name of organic produce. Now, due to reduced production cost and better price at the end, their profit margins has increased and it has been noticed that these communities are becoming more and more prosperous and healthy. SDPI wanted to replicate the same experience in Pakistan. In October 1999, SDPI was able to organize a Farmers’ Exchange Visit to Nepal and Bangladesh in collaboration with South Asian Network on Food, Ecology and Culture (SANFEC). Sixteen farmers, including three women, across Pakistan participated in this visit and, at the end, they were motivated enough that promised to follow what they learned during this visit. SDPI is in touch with them and their progress so far is satisfactory. SDPI is also intended to help and mobilize these farmers to boost up this movement. The target aim is to support the rural communities, to reduce their poverty and dependencies and to check their migration to the urban centers. SDPI realizes the need to mobilize and motivate the rural communities to restore their livelihood for a transition to sustainable development in the country.
How can sustainable agriculture secure food security?
Needless to say that food is one the basic and top priority needs which a poor requires. In the age of modern agriculture, poor communities face difficulty to produce/purchase food. Poor rural communities spend the bulk (up to 75 percent) of their incomes on food, leaving surplus for the purchase of agricultural inputs and rest of the necessaries of life. Sustainable ecological agriculture has the potential to boost incomes and food security if the food distribution problem is justifiably solved. If sustainable agriculture is revived in the country and rural communities are prevented form dependencies, it can be hoped that they will produce cheaper and healthy food to the desired extent. In this way the menace of food shortage will be overcome solving, automatically, the food problem. This will be then termed as sustainable approach to secure food security. Food security is not only a question of enough amount of foodstuff in quantitative terms as it is often expressed in the official documents. The quality of food available for the masses is important as well. Thus, apart from safety of food the question of food security also means diverse and quality food for healthy lives. Green revolution is known to be the crop production boost, although productions are now declining even though hazardous fertilizer, weedicide and pesticide-use have increased manifold. Thus, it was both ecologically and economically unsustainable. The conventional intensive agricultural practices cause severe effect on nutrition and welfare of people and cause severe health hazards. In comparison, sustainable ecological agriculture has the potential to provide cheap, safe and health food to the communities in a sustainable way. It is a safe way of producing food that ensures cheap and easily available food which is rich in food & taste and best for human health as well. For instance, the study given in the Box-1 strengthens the opinion that, as compared to conventional chemical farming, the ecological farming is economical, competitive, sustainable, rich in food & taste, and environment friendly. It is in fact food for thought for those who still believe in commercialized chemical/biotechnology/ corporate agriculture. If this sort of system is revived, majority of the population residing in rural areas will be able to fulfill all their basic needs through this approach. With regards to food security there are some other traditional lifestyles which are important but have become extinct these days. Few of these are: 1. Use of uncultivated food by the communities If the old villagers are interviewed, they will disclose that almost 50 percent of their food was obtained from uncultivated plants then. In fact overall food was a mix of cultivated/uncultivated food plants and domesticated/wild animals’ meet. In the conventional modern agriculture, uncultivated plants are considered weeds and are eradicated through weedicides. The remaining uncultivated plants are mostly not fit for health due to indiscriminately used agro-chemicals. In comparison, sustainable ecological agriculture protects the uncultivated plants as they have important role in the ecosystem and if used for food, they are healthy too. 2. Food diversity in the routine life At this time, our food has become limited to only few most available and mostly industrialized items. In comparison, few decades ago, food was simple, diverse and rich in quality. There are lot many advantages of diverse food. For instance, it provides diverse important nutrients to the human body needed for a healthy life. Similarly, growing diverse food crops, coupled with on farm livestock, poultry and fish ponds, is also best to maintain soil fertility, avoid severe pest attacks, offer hundreds of uncultivated food plants and present healthy environment. As discussed above, in the conventional agriculture only few cash crops are preferred which leads to a monoculture. In comparison, sustainable ecological agriculture ensures heteroculture comprised of mix of diverse crops, vegetables, fruit, livestock, poultry and fish farm on the same farm resulting into a good food diversity. 3. Urban agriculture Under the concept of sustainable agriculture, it is believed that urban dwellers should also be involved in food production. This was in fact another important factor in the traditional lifestyle few decades ago. Urban dwellers were not totally dependent on villagers and use to produce vegetables, milk, eggs and poultry, etc. within homes and in the urban peripheral areas. Although, there are still examples of urban agriculture in few urban centers in Pakistan but due to policies in the wrong direction, over time, these are getting rare. Recommendations: In view of the adverse impacts of increasing intensive farming and corporate control over food, peoples and cultures, following measures are suggested: 1. To reduce poverty, enhance food security and desire development, the indigenous socio-economic systems of rural Pakistan must be well understood and involved in the development and decision making processes. Government and other sectors must recognize and support initiatives by farmers and farmer groups who are developing, adapting and using sustainable agriculture practices in their farms and strengthen farmer-based research, extension and exchange in ecological agriculture. 2. Since small and medium farmers play key role in sustainable agriculture, agricultural planning needs to be restructured to give more weight to small and landless farmers who constitute, on average, 94 percent of all farmers in Pakistan, constitute a lot to GDP, but get too little weight in the planning process. While doing so, gender issues also need to be taken into account as women play important role in food production with no any encouragement at all. 3. Sustainable agriculture is an approach which cannot be revived through short-term and adhoc approach. And thus, poverty can also be alleviated through long-term planning. It needs the development of strategies for increasing the long-term and sustainable incomes of the rural poor. It is, thus, necessary to integrate macroeconomic policies, sector planning, and sound project interventions in order to achieve long-term goal. 4. To revive sustainable agriculture and reduce poverty in the country, the role of public sector needs to be reconsidered. Evidences, over the time, indicate that the impact of government programs has not been proportionate with the human and financial resources employed. A lack of political commitment, weak institutional structures, inadequate delivery systems, indifferent staff attitudes, and financial leakages and malpractices have undermined the effectiveness of government programs. 5. For protecting small, marginal and landless farmers against price fluctuations in agricultural products, incentive pricing, provision of subsidized inputs, export promotion and crop diversification should be encouraged. 6. Emphasis on equity and welfare can also reduce poverty and enhance state of food security in the country. Hence, justifiable land reforms has been recognized as a key issue in reducing poverty due to the fact that small farmers have a proven record in raising agricultural productivity as well as employment. This is such an important that most of the problems of the country will automatically be solved through this single intervention. Similarly, bold efforts are also needed with regards to law and order so that all respects country laws and these should be enforced without discrimination. 7. Governments must recognize that farmers’ rights have precedence over intellectual property rights and that IPRs destroy biodiversity and hence, farmer’s livelihoods. If sustainable agriculture is desired, farmers’ traditional and basic rights are crucial to be protected under the WTO regime. 8. There is a desperate need to have integrated policy making processes within the government system involving and satisfying various ministries and line departments. For instance, the idea of corporate farming is very attractive idea to finance and commerce ministry but in Agriculture, it must not be a good idea because it will ruin the remaining agricultural system and kill the hope to have sustainable agriculture in the country which is desperately needed. Similarly, the way corporate farming will create environmental problems, rural communities will be displaced by rural system’s destruction, and, as a result, severe urbanization will happen, it is totally against the agenda of Ministry of Environment, Labor, Local Government and Rural development. Health ministry will also be not happy but still this idea is being taken on priority basis which clearly indicates that this is not a coordinated effort. Similarly, genetic engineering is another world widely recognized risky technology which should have been prohibited but due to the system we have it is also being promoted. |
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