Are Smallholders the Solution?

An exclusive focus on smallholders risks romanticising their practices, and being a myopic reaction to the failures of Western, top-down, 'hard' development; such as large-scale irrigation, dam construction and monoculture cropping. A celebration of the small, which can dominate the literature, ignores the benefits of large-scale, commercial farming. Indeed, an increase in labour productivity and the creation of income opportunities outside of the agricultural sector has a significant role in poverty reduction, particularly in the face of climate change, which is likely to affect Africa dramatically. My interests lie in the interaction between small- and large- scale agriculture, and how different modes of production might be appropriate to different geographical and political regions. As I hope has been shown, one need not exclude the other. Horizontally connecting smallholders with one another, promoting trade and stronger institutions, as well as forming vertical links between small farms and larger commercial enterprises can increase income, food security and climate adaptation.

Superfarms

A 'superfarm' deal, according to the FAO, is when a foreign government, or company acting on their behalf, takes a very long lease on a huge area of land. Superfarms can be problematic in a number of ways: firstly, they can encourage dramatic consumption of natural resources, particularly water for overhead irrigation or livestock farming. Secondly, they can create a 'monopsony' in the local or regional factor market; the market for production inputs like natural resources and labour. A monopsony occurs when a single buyer interacts with multiple sellers. While it can be advantageous for the superfarm leaseholder, as prices are driven down, it is neither beneficial nor efficient for smaller businesses or local people. Finally, the FAO condemns superfarms as having fundamentally geopolitical aims, rather than concerned with agricultural growth or poverty reduction. It hypothesises that superfarms emerged as a reaction to the 2008 global food crisis, where droughts in grain-producing countries resulted in export bans; a lack of produce entering the world food market drove prices sky-high, causing shortages and riots. Consequently countries that rely heavily on food imports, such as China, have endeavoured to secure a "major source of supply": huge swathes of African land. 

The article by the FAO focussed on crop superfarms; I came across an example of a 'dairy superfarm' in Namibia, which seems to avoid many of the aforementioned issues. The !Aimab farm is a Namibia Dairies project, owned by the African company Ohlthaver & List, and is 'super' in the sense of its size, housing around 2000 cows, and its integrated network of supply, production, and processing. The farm has heavily invested in technology, such as computerised milking reports, and has features that protect the cows against Namibia's variable climates, including dry, hot winds and mudslides from excess rainfall. A 'closed cycle' waste management approach has also been adopted; following the farms construction in 2009 manure was used to fertilise the pastures (the cows are free range) but subsequently an attached biogas plant has been constructed. The farm sources the majority of its fodder from local producers, exemplifying one of the ways a large commercial enterprise can be compatible with local smallholders. Of key significance is the farm's focus on the full value chain. Value is added by processing into a wide variety of products, including long-life powder mixes and traditional fermentation. Raw milk is also purchased from local producers, to satisfy the demand for these different products. There has also been investment into the infrastructure of cold chain distribution, to ensure safety and minimise waste. This recalls much of what I mentioned in my previous post about the potential of agricultural value chains in Africa. One issue is the intensive water consumption inherent to dairy farms, for the cows to drink as well as for cleaning and processing. Despite this, efficient use is compatible with many features of the farm. For example, the sourcing of fodder from local farmers where it may be a waste product, rather than growing it specifically for the cows. Also important is that the farm has lined their manure pits to prevent contamination of groundwater. 

Superfarms are not the solution for agricultural growth in Africa, in part because of their dramatic use of water and other inputs. However, the Namibian dairy superfarm provides an example of how commercial enterprises can be compatible with small-scale farms, by linking them to the value chain and, potentially, national or international markets. 

¹ Collier P & Dercon S, 2009. African Africulture in 50 Years: Smallholders in a Rapidly Changing World. FAO Expert Meeting on How to Feed the World in 2050. Accessed 8/1/17 from http://www.fao.org/3/a-ak983e.pdf

² Ohlthaver & List Group, 2009. Namibia Dairies- Profile. Accessed 9/1/17 from http://www.ohlthaverlist.com/o-l-companies/namibia-dairies.php#.WHTWOrF0fBI

³ Food Processing Africa, 2008. Namibia Gets a 'Superfarm' Dairy. Accessed 9/1/17 from http://www.foodprocessingafrica.com/namibia-gets-a-superfarm-dairy/

⁴ New Era Newspaper Namibia, 2016. O&L committed to reducing carbon footprint. Accessed 10/1/17 from https://www.newera.com.na/2016/04/19/ol-committed-reducing-carbon-footprint/

'LUSH': An Unlikely Source of Corporate Inspiration

The website of the cosmetics company has some interesting case studies of the work they fund in Africa, particularly the Mountain Organic Farming Network that operates in the arid regions at the base of Mount Kenya. This article highlights the successes of connecting smallholders with large-scale enterprises, and how subsistence food crops can be compatible with cash crops if an innovation, value-chain approach is adopted.

At the farms mentioned, intercropping is practised. This means different crops are planted in close proximity, with considerations such as providing shade to vulnerable species, fixing nitrogen in the soil, or retaining soil moisture. This improves soil fertility and biodiversity in an area that lacks consistent rainfall, and challenges the 'monoculture' approach inherent to large-scale agriculture. Moreover, local farmers choose to grow food crops with specific micronutrients that supplement the cheap, but often nutritionally inadequate, staple crops that are purchased. These methods promote food security; in the concentrated nutritional benefits of these crops, but also because the project links local farmers, and allows them to trade crops that are either surplus or lacking. 

Alongside food crops, cash crops are grown. While not a food, geranium plants produce a valuable oil that is in demand in the international market. Local people maintain the business, but this would not have been achieved without LUSH's investment into the value chain infrastructure: the ability to store, process (by distilling), and package the crops. In my opinion, this is an example of an international company contributing to African agriculture in a successful and sustainable manner.

My Personal Issue of the Week: the Falkenmark Water Stress Indicator

The most widely used measure of water scarcity is the Falkenmark Water Stress Indicator, developed in 1989, which states that water availability below 1700m³/capita/year causes regular water stress. Availability below 1000m³/capita/year is classed as water scarcity that threatens human health and economic development (and below 500m³/capita/year indicates absolute scarcity). Indicators are instruments to simplify large amounts of data, and Falkenmark’s measure achieves this successfully. However, attempting to aggregate water requirements and water availability into a single measure loses important information. One such limitation of the Falkenmark Water Stress Indicator is that it only considers renewable surface water and groundwater flows within a country. Moreover, averaging water availability across a spatial and temporal scale neglects water shortages that occur during dry seasons, and at smaller regional scales. Furthermore, it does not account for the quality of the water, nor does it describe the ability of the country to make use of the resource. All of these limitations apply with particular clarity to African countries, for reasons that have been described in previous posts.

The Falkenmark Indicator is highly useful because it is understood intuitively; however, an indicator that is applied so extensively in the realm of social development should also hold steady the crucial meaning of the challenges under consideration. To me, a key limitation of the Falkenmark Indicator is not the loss of information, but the loss of action. Preoccupation with one measure promotes lethargy in two dimensions: first, if the parameters of the indicator are adjusted, different countries become ‘water scarce’, meaning the label of ‘water scarcity’ has less weight and the tackling it appears overwhelming; second, if the indicator is used in relation to a single discourse, any challenge to that discourse that emerge, including from the indicator itself, are ignored. I would like to illustrate this in the following ways.

Firstly, explicitly accounting for the water needs of ecosystems pushes many ‘developed’ countries into apparent water scarcity, including large parts of Europe, North America and Australia. The competition between ecosystems and irrigated agriculture in these areas is not at the forefront of the discourse, perhaps because large-scale water use already blends seamlessly with economic and development success. The term ‘water scarcity’ often brings to mind domestic shortages; for drinking and sanitation, but this is fractional compared the water requirements of agriculture and industry. Domestic water use is not affected by scarcity in the physical sense, but by supply infrastructure, poverty and politics. Therefore, it follows that a sensible application of the thresholds proposed by Falkenmark is to indicate that water is becoming scarce for food production, particularly in arid or highly climatically variable parts of Africa. Why then, is the continent pushed towards a ‘Green Revolution’, a plan for agricultural production that involves massive water use? Furthermore, on a more technical note, it makes little sense for the Falkenmark Indicator to be heavily linked to water scarcity for agriculture when soil moisture, the recipient of a large proportion of annual rainfall, is excluded from the measure.

Another theme that arises from the Falkenmark indicator the negative impact of population growth on water resources: population growth essentially multiplies the water requirements set out by Falkenmark et al., while the amount of surface water and groundwater remains relatively constant. However, daily water needs are likely to be dynamic, and dependent on income, lifestyle and attitude. Currently, it appears this flexibility in water use will only exacerbate scarcity; in the 20^th century the world population tripled, but water use increase six fold². The potential impact of attitudes and lifestyle can alternatively be seen as an opportunity for positive change. This can be seen in the energy sector, with the achievement of increasing efficiency and the adoption of corresponding values. Of course, there is far more to achieve regarding energy use, but what is often most important, and most difficult, is initiating a change in the existing system.

A similar change needs to happen within the current paradigm of water use, particularly for agricultural production. In my opinion, there is little point in the ability to say, “this area is water scarce”, when nothing is done about it. While the value of the Falkenmark Indicator remains in situations where information needs to be conveyed quickly and simply, measuring water scarcity should include more observational and longitudinal measures. It is a near consensus that water management needs to be more participatory, seen in the increasing popularity of ‘integrated resource management’, but true democratic participation is likely to emerge from communities and regions being able to say “WE are experiencing water scarcity”; rather than a distant indicator labeling them as such. More importantly, action should follow any observation or confirmation of water scarcity. This is more likely to be achieved with decentralised, efficient and adaptable strategies that focus on two key areas of water: maintaining soil moisture, for example through controlled flood releases at dams, the use of terraces (such as in Machakos, Kenya) or simply encouraging a diversity of moisture-retaining plant species on farms; secondly, a focus on developing highly productive strategies of micro-irrigation, such as drip irrigation^{3, 4}. The Falkenmark Indicator, whether intentionally or not, places the individual user at the centre, therefore the individual users should be given the capacity to adapt to water scarcity effectively.

¹ Rijsberman FR, 2006. Water scarcity: Fact or fiction? Agri Wat Manag, 80(1-3): 5-22.

² Cosgrove WJ & Rijsberman FR, 2000. World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody’s Business. London: Earthscan Publications.

³ Gleick P, 2003. ‘Soft Path’ solution to 21^st-century water needs. Science, 320(5650): 1524-28.

⁴ Postel S, 2001. Safeguarding our water – Growing more food with less water. Sci Am, 284(2): 40-45.

⁵ NTUA. Indicators and indices for decision making in water management. EEMRU Newsletter. Accessed 30/12/16 from http://environ.chemeng.ntua.gr/WSM/Newsletters/Issue4/Indicators_Appendix.htm