Smallholder farmers need seat at climate table

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Short-term, reactive solutions are not enough to help smallholder farmers cope with climate change, according to a 2015 report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

“If we are going to sustainably improve the livelihoods of the developing world’s smallholder farmers in the context of a changing climate, we need to ensure that their priorities are understood and reflected in policies,” says IFAD’s Vice President Michel Mordasini.

The report, prepared by IFAD, suggests that practical technical interventions, such as enhanced seeds and accurate weather forecasts, are not enough and that ultimately national policies, a legal framework, strategies and budgets will shape the opportunities for large numbers of rural women and men to adapt to a changing environment.

The report points out that smallholder farmers know best the realities they face, and if they are not adequately involved in policy processes, they risk losing out and being sidelined in decisions that directly determine their ability to cope and adapt. The report highlights IFAD’s support for policy dialogue between governments and farmers, including special provisions to ensure that the adaptation priorities of women, young people and indigenous peoples are also heard.

The report presents five country case studies of how IFAD is strengthening the enabling environment for farmers trying to cope with climate change. One of the featured case studies is from Sudan.

“In Sudan, IFAD is supporting the development of 300 community adaptation plans that enhance resilience of women and men,” says Khalida Bouzar, Director of IFAD’s North Africa, Near East and Europe Division. “IFAD is building capacities of technical staff at local and state levels and strengthening their understanding of climate change adaptation and natural resource management, promoting arrangements that help reduce resource-based conflicts, as well as supporting policy through the development of a Sectorial Adaptation Strategy relevant to the livestock sector. This strategy will in turn be implemented through the community adaptation plans, as we believe that while climate change is a global problem, climate action is a local solution.''

IFAD is also working to support governments in embedding smallholder adaptation priorities in national policies. In Mozambique, for example, IFAD is working with the Centre for the Promotion of Agriculture to support the mainstreaming of gender and climate change adaptation into national policies on horticulture, cassava and red meat production.

“IFAD stresses the importance of reinforcing national institutions in dealing with climate impacts on smallholder farmers,” says Margarita Astralaga, Director of IFAD’s Environment and Climate Division. “In the Gambia we support policy makers learn from the experience of countries facing similar challenges.”

The report highlights the importance of global processes, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC), as opportunities to keep smallholder adaptation priorities in the limelight.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) invests in rural people, empowering them to reduce poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition and strengthen resilience. Since 1978, we have provided nearly US$17 billion in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached about 453 million people. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency based in Rome – the UN's food and agriculture hub.

But what IFAD actually does is concentrating on small farmers in the Third World – no, I am not playing the pc game by calling those countries “developing countries” – but seem to have little if any time for smallholders in the so-called developed world. They have to fend for themselves without anyone carrying the flame for them.

All the smallholders and small farmers the world over must be given a place at the climate table, so to speak, for it is, in fact they, and not industrialized agriculture, that will mitigate climate change and feed the world.

We need more small farmers and smallholders rather than large farms to feed the world and to capture carbon and prevent agricultural pollution reaching air and water courses, especially when the farming is done on a more or less organic level.

A look needs to be taken at how the small farms in Russia are working as to feeding the country and how more of such farms everywhere could really change food security. To get more such farms, however, would mean a serious land reform where those that truly are prepared to farm in a sustainable way to create food security for the nation (and the world) will be given land. This land can only come about, though, by expropriation of the large farms and also, such in the UK, the large, often unproductive, feudal estates, and the sooner this is being done the better.

© 2017

The many benefits of crop rotation

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Crop rotation is a common farming practice where different series of crops are planted in the same area each sequential season. Planting different crops on the same piece of land has been used since Roman times and has been proven to improve plant nutrition, benefit soil health, and control the spread of disease.

A new study, and yes they indeed needed a study again to tell farmers what our ancestors have known all along, to be published in Nature's 'The ISME Journal' reveals just how profound crop rotation's effect is on enriching soil with bacteria, fungi and protozoa.

"Changing the crop species massively changes the content of microbes in the soil, which in turn helps the plant to acquire nutrients, regulate growth and protect itself against pests and diseases, boosting yield," said Professor Philip Poole from the John Innes Centre.

Researchers collected soil from a field planted with wheat, oats and peas. After growing wheat, it remained largely unchanged and the microbes in it were mostly bacteria. However, growing oat and pea in the same sample caused a huge shift towards protozoa and nematode worms. Soil grown with peas was highly enriched for fungi.

"The soil around the roots was similar before and after growing wheat, but peas and oats re-set of the diversity of microbes," said Professor Poole.

After only four weeks of growth, the soil surrounding wheat contained about 3% eukaryotes. This went up to 12-15% for oat and pea.

Every gram of soil contains over 50,000 species of bacteria so the task is enormous when analyzing DNA samples, so researchers sequenced RNA so a full snapshot can be taken of the active bacteria, fungi, protozoa and other microbes in the soil.

"By sequencing RNA, we can look at the big picture of active microbes in the soil," said PhD student Tom Turner from the John Innes Centre. "This also allows us to work out what they are doing there, including how they might be helping the plants out."

"Our work helps explain the experience of farmers in the field," said Professor Poole.

The findings of the study could be used to develop plant varieties that encourage beneficial microbes in the soil. John Innes Centre scientists are already investigating the possibility of engineering cereal crops able to associate with the nitrogen-fixing bacteria normally associated with peas.

Professor Poole comments, "Scientists, breeders and farmers can make the most of these effects not only with what they grow but how they grow it."

The fact that crop rotation works has been known for millenniums probably and it was for that reason that there always was a rotation cycle in vegetable gardens and on fields before the agro-chemical industry tried to make us believe that we could just throw chemicals at the plants and that would be all that would be needed. It is not.

Soil leaches its nutrients when plant food, aka fertilizer, more often then not nowadays in the form of some petroleum derivative, is thrown at the plants. The structure of the soil gets destroyed by planting the same crop each and every season on the same plot of land and then bombarding the area with chemicals and the nutrients are getting more and more depleated.

It is for this very reason that yields, per acre, are larger on Amish farms than they are on the big "commercial" farms, those that are worked with heavy machines and where the plants get bombarded with chemical fertilizers.

Where manure is being used, such as on organic farms, and those of the Amish people, the soil is what is enriched and in that way the plants are. Another well-known fact required a million dollar study to discover the truth already known.

Sometimes one can all but wonder where all the ancient knowledge has gone. It would appear that there are far too many people about who have been educated well beyond their capacity. The gods help us!

© 2013