“If agriculture in developing countries becomes more sustainable, if it increases its productivity and becomes more resilient against the impact of climate change, this should help to reduce the number of currently around one billion hungry people and offer better income and job opportunities,” said Alexander Mueller, FAO Assistant Director-General.
“Millions of poor farmers around the globe could help in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Peter Holmgren, FAO focal point for the UN climate change negotiations.
OK. But what about preparing those self-same farmers to cope with climate change by giving them access to agricultural biodiversty?
Africa’s market for milk, meat and staple food crops such as maize, banana, sorghum, rice and millet stands at over $150 billion a year which is more than what it fetches from pet cash crops like coffee, tea and flowers.
Researchers say that seven out of ten Africans earn their living by engaging in subsistence farming making the sub-sector to be the continent’s market leader.
It is for this reason that the farmers are encouraged to embrace modern farming methods to produce more food in order to make economic sense.
On the other hand, governments are obliged to ensure that farm inputs are affordable and farmers have access to markets to sell their harvests at competitive prices to reap fruits of the labour.
OK. But does “modern farming” mean abandoning their agrobiodiversity and the skills to use it? And why is it government’s responsibility to make sure inputs are affordable? If government distorts price signals, we can’t blame farmers for doing the most profitable thing in the short term, even if it means losing their agricultural biodiversity and the skills to use it in the longer term.
