Global farming systems
A new "agricultural atlas" from
FAO will help the World Bank target investment to relieve hunger and rural
poverty
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FAO's farming systems map of East Africa
(detail)
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At his computer in
FAO headquarters in Rome, John Dixon has a different view of world
agriculture. "Take eastern Africa," he says, loading a new map
from a database being developed on the FAO intranet. In addition to
familiar national boundaries, the page displays what amounts to new
agricultural atlas. "That's the 'maize-mixed' system," says
Dixon, indicating a long, purple contour that stretches from Ethiopia,
through Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, almost to the
tip of South Africa. "It used to be the food basket of the subregion,
and now it's in crisis - declining soil fertility, inadequate seed and
fertilizer supply due to cutbacks in government spending."
With a mouse click, the
page loads key data on Africa's "cereal-root crop mixed" farming
system, represented by a dark orange belt running across the north of the
continent, from the Atlantic coast through Ghana, Nigeria and Chad into
southern Sudan. It also appears on sizeable areas of Angola and
Mozambique. "Here the main source of vulnerability is drought,"
Dixon comments. "But it also has low population density, an abundance
of potentially arable land, and very high potential for sustainable
growth."
The complete set of FAO
Farming Systems maps is not due on-line - and CD-ROM - until mid-year. But
the methodology and data underpinning it are already available - in a Global
farming systems study commissioned by the World Bank as part of a
major review of its rural development strategy. That study used extensive
biophysical and socio-economic information to build profiles of 70 major
farming systems covering the developing world. With it, says Dixon, a
co-author of the study, the Bank, other development agencies and
governments have a new means for targeting policies, technical assistance
and investment to relieve hunger and rural poverty...
 ...Why
is that?
"Because a farming system is the closest representation we have of
how farmers think and make decisions. And the experience over the past
half a century has shown, convincingly, that without that information,
agricultural development programmes can go badly awry. It goes beyond the
traditional commodity, or disciplinary, approach that focused on ways of
increasing yields, as if that were the only important consideration
farmers make. Viewing farming as a 'system' means integrating the
bio-physical dimensions - such as soil nutrients and water balances - with
socio-economic aspects at the level of the farm, where most agricultural
production and consumption decisions are made. What this study did was
apply farming systems analysis on a global scale, allowing us to define
broad regional systems, the current constraints on their development, and
their potential."
How
did you define those systems?
"The general criteria used were of two basic types: first, the
available natural resource base, climate, typography, farm size and
tenure; second, household livelihood patterns, technologies, and farm
management and organization. These criteria helped us identify 72 distinct
farming systems in all six developing regions, with an average
agricultural population of about 40 million. That in itself was no simple
exercise: almost all existing data systems are based on national and
subnational administrative areas, not farming systems, which cut cross
those boundaries. FAO's experience in agro-ecological zoning proved
invaluable in building up a farming systems database for our central,
qualitative task - making expert judgements on the future evolution of
farming systems and their development priorities."
Global farming systems study: Challenges and priorities
to 2030 was written by John Dixon, an FAO senior
farming systems officer, and Aidan Gulliver, FAO
agricultural economist, with consultant David Gibbon and
contributions from 30 specialists in FAO's Agriculture
Department. Download here the study's synthesis
and global overview (PDF, 538K) and seven
regional maps (PDF, 5.3Mb) |
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In
the end, you prepared detailed analyses of 20 of those systems...
"Yes, from three to five farming systems were identified in each
developing region, based on their potential for poverty reduction and
agricultural growth over the next three decades. We determined that
potential by looking at underlying agro-climatic and soil conditions,
land-to-population ratio, current intensity of exploitation, and the
feasibility of removing or reducing present constraints."
For
example...
"Well, take that Maize Mixed System in East and Southern Africa.
Until recently, the development approach for smallholder maize growers was
single-component 'quick fix' technical packages - inorganic fertilizers
and improved varieties. Now, with structural adjustment, the end of
guaranteed prices and the withdrawal of subsidies, high-input maize has
become uneconomic and farmers have reverted to traditional varieties, and
even to substitute crops like sorghum and sweet potatoes. Nevertheless, we
conclude that long-term growth prospects are good, and the potential for
poverty reduction is high. But a turnaround depends on a variety of
factors: private sector investment in viable input and output marketing to
replace government services that have been withdrawn, productive and
profitable technologies for improved soil fertility management, and
improved land husbandry - conservation farming, for example. Ultimately,
sustainable land management and soil nutrient capitalization will depend
on secure and equitable access to resources, especially land and water. A
community model based on customary tenure and community control holds
promise."
If
the maize-mixed system's prospects are "good", the study seems
to foresee almost a boom for farmers in Africa's moist savannah
"The prospects there are excellent. The Cereal-Root Crop Mixed System
shares some of the Maize Mixed System's climatic limitations, but has
poorer transport and communications infrastructure. Nevertheless, in some
parts of West Africa's moist savannah - and the Cerrados in central Brazil
- there is great scope for expansion and intensification of crop
production. The main constraints are the lack of infrastructure - mainly
roads to markets - and suitable production technologies. But with the
right policies and investment, the dominant outcome could be increased
food and feed production driven by global demand, particularly in Asia.
We're talking here about maize and sorghum, and legumes such as
soybean."
Which
brings us to the Rice Systems in South and Southeast Asia...
"There, production is still high, but there are evident difficulties
- little land available for agricultural expansion, declining soil
fertility and, in some places, rice yields approaching their known
ceilings. It's reasonable to expect that in the next 30 years, as
population grows, the region will become a major importer of food and
animal feed. In Southeast Asia's lowland rice system, income security in
the smallholder sector will depend increasingly on diversification into
higher value crops, such as vegetables, citrus and feed, and into small
livestock production and on-farm aquaculture. Along with that, farmers
will need improved extension, financial and marketing systems, and greater
integration into the non-farm economy."
You've
been working on the farming systems approach since the 1980s. Now that
it's being incorporated into the World Bank's rural development strategy,
would you say it's "an idea whose time has come"?
"We've seen a period in which top priorities in agricultural
development were structural adjustment and 'getting prices right'. There
has been economic growth, and food production has increased. But levels of
poverty are still high in South Asia, and high and increasing alarmingly
in Africa. In our global family, one in five lives in extreme poverty and
more than 800 million are undernourished. That's why the focus of the
World Bank and other development agencies is now swinging back to poverty.
The contribution of the farming systems approach is a framework that will
help them set their priorities for investment in food security, poverty
reduction and economic growth. In other words: in broad-based agricultural
development that reaches and benefits the poorest, and hungriest,
small-scale farming families."
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