Chains, loops, pillars and bridges – building resilience into agricultural systems.

By Alice Marks, @alicemarks0

Credit: UN/Logan Abassi

As meteorologists report that the El Niño Southern Oscillation is ending and a La Niña may be developing, spare a thought for smallholder farmers. Erratic rainfall, short growing seasons, prolonged droughts and flooding mean that crop yields suffer, and so do the livelihoods of those who rely on farming as their main source of income. And because agriculture does not only provide food, but also provides important environmental services, employment, and economic opportunities for local communities, it is not just the farmers and their families who feel the effects of the unpredictable weather that is becoming increasingly common all around the world. With increasingly global food systems, we will all suffer the consequences.

Despite the volatile weather, the food must grow on. Globally the growing population demands more, and more varied, food, to be grown with ever scarcer resources. However, current agricultural techniques have a voracious appetite for resources, consuming about 70% of all freshwater and using ever more land. But there are other viable ways of farming that are less resource intensive. In the recent submission to the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 44), A4I advocated for the practices of Sustainable Intensification (SI) for agriculture. SI integrates innovations in ecology, genetics and socio-economics to help build environmentally sustainable, productive and resilient ways to produce more food with less, ensuring that the natural resources on which agriculture depends are maintained and even improved for future generations – also take a look at the A4I SI database where there are explanations and more than 80 case studies to highlight some of the best practices of SI.

Delivering food security through international trade

When discussing global food security, the issues of access and availability commonly come up.  As One Billion Hungry examines, we currently produce enough food to feed the world, although demand is rapidly outpacing supply as populations and incomes rise and as the impacts of climate change escalate, and yet almost 900 million people do not get enough food to eat. Increasing food production, while critical, is unlikely to solve hunger and malnutrition alone. A new report by the Global Harvest Initiative highlights the importance of trade to food security, examining how our global trade systems can and must change to serve the whole of the population.

Coming at a particularly relevant time, following the success of the Bali trade talks and with negotiations for several bilateral trade agreements underway, the report, International Trade and Agriculture: Supporting Value Chains to Deliver Development and Food Security, was developed by GHI in collaboration with trade experts from the New Markets Lab, TransFarm Africa, and the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council.

Given increasing globalisation, global trade and markets are becoming more important in the decisions of individual farmers. For farmers to invest in their farming enterprises, an end market must be available to them. This means that international trade decisions made in far off countries are having more of an impact on farmers on the ground. The report urges an holistic and integrated approach to trade with the aim of developing effective in-country enabling environments and efficient and fair value chains.

Specifically the report highlights the following actions needed:

• Consistent, transparent, and science-based frameworks for regulating food safety, along with reliable processes for administering sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules, are critical to value chain development and increased agricultural trade;
• Legal and regulatory issues play a significant role at all stages in value chain development – including inputs, production, processing, transport, and end markets – and many of these issues are covered by trade rules and disciplines;
• Trade policy instruments can help foster the development of reliable systems for moving goods – including food, inputs, and equipment – and services through necessary legal and policy infrastructure and appropriate trade facilitation interventions;
• A stronger focus on services will be increasingly important to agricultural trade, with laws and regulations needed that can support open systems for transport and distribution services; financial services; and wholesale, retail, franchising, and other services;
• In places like sub-Saharan Africa where so many markets are small and landlocked, regional integration and harmonization of laws and regulations will be critical to agricultural growth, and particular focus should be placed on how laws and regulations are being implemented in practice;
• Adequate and equitable intellectual rights protection is becoming increasingly important as technology, information sharing, and communication play an even larger role in value chain development;
• With agricultural markets becoming more and more global, inward-looking policies – including forced localization – will need to be handled carefully so that they do not pose a threat to agricultural development and food security; and
• There is a widespread need for commercially-focused capacity building designed to facilitate market development and generate regulatory reform in the agricultural sector.

Undertaking these actions should be the responsibility of the World Trade Organisation and a variety of international trade partnerships. The report clearly shows the need for innovation in trade and for greater transparency, in part to help uncover the potential for trade to actually help develop markets. As GHI state “Trade can and should impact individuals positively, add value economy-wide, and deliver broader food security and development benefits.”

While the report highlights the potential of trade to open up opportunities for farmers there is little mention of the need to protect farmers from the impacts of liberalisation, particularly where markets are mostly informal. Aiding small-scale farmers to meet the requirements of global markets in cost-effective ways must surely go alongside the increasing reach of international trade?