How can the private sector, both corporate and smallholder, be better engaged?

The goal is to produce researched policy relevant options for the preservation of biodiversity in smallholder agricultural systems.

11. Self sufficiency in basic foodstuffs, produced almost entirely by the smallholder sector, was achieved in 1996 and 1997.

The results of these projects are summarized in the two books African Biodiversity in Smallholder Farms of East Africa and Managing Agrodiversity the Traditional Way.

Also, the majority of forests are owned by the public sector but are managed (formally or informally) by the private sector, both corporate and smallholder.

In IFAD s experience, working simply to double the income of a smallholder farmer who scrapes by on less than a dollar a day is poverty management, because at two dollars a day, he or she still remains poor. But supporting that smallholder in launching a farming business that could generate a five fold increase in income amounts to poverty eradication.

In most of Asia, land reform has focused on converting tenants into private smallholder owners, except in China, where a different model promoting the household responsibility system has been adopted.

Development assistance is focused on rehabilitation and extension of essential social services and infrastructure, human capital investment, promoting smallholder agriculture and establishing an enabling environment for the expansion of private activity.

The role of smallholder agriculture as the main source of growth and poverty alleviation for Mozambique was emphasized and the importance of the private sector for sustaining high growth rates stressed.

135. The PLEC programme focuses on land resources and biological diversity in managed agro ecosystems among smallholder farmers in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

At the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), we believe that farming, regardless of size or scale, must be seen as a business, and smallholder farmers as small scale business owners rather than poor people who need handouts. There is growing recognition that these smallholder farmers and their rural communities are a major part of the solution to food insecurity and poverty but only if they have what they need to do their jobs.

The Fund has also been at the forefront in promoting synergies between International Agricultural Research Centres and National Agricultural Research Systems, while seeking to reorient research to smallholder concerns and rural poverty issues.

Many individual donor countries have declared that they are now prepared to increase their financial support for smallholder agriculture, but are searching for the appropriate mechanisms to do so. The current aid structures are inadequate.

Noting that hundreds of millions of women worldwide live in poverty and that the majority of poor women throughout the world live in rural areas, where their livelihoods are dependent on subsistence and smallholder agriculture,

Thus, the formula by which diversification and export growth were to be achieved was through the creation of a relationship between a corporate sector firm with capital and know how and a smallholder with land and labour.

IFAD has played a unique role in the United Nations system, as a leading institution with financial assistance focused strictly on the rural poor smallholder farmer, the landless and, in particular, rural women in low income countries.

Smallholder farmers and others living in impoverished rural areas require soil nutrients, better plant varieties, improved water management and training in modern and environmentally sustainable farming practices, along with access to transport, water, sanitation and modern energy services.

Many are malnourished or hungry. But, with some 80 million small farms in sub Saharan Africa producing 80 of agricultural goods, smallholder farmers have a key role to play in resolving the financial and food crises and unleashing Africa s potential to feed itself.

Surmounting these challenges will not be easy. But, by taking concerted action to encourage innovation, strengthen market linkages, and support smallholder farmers and women, developing countries can build productive, stable, resilient, and equitable agricultural sectors, achieve sustainable economic growth, and guarantee food security for all.

Finally, the business community should use its management expertise, marketing, technology, logistical capacity, and reach to improve the quality and affordability of nutritious foods on the market. Moreover, large companies should use their global supply chains to empower their workforces and women smallholder farmers.

During the 1970s, Thailand s smallholder dominated natural rubber sector was linked to international markets by a group of Thai rubber exporters five companies handling around 75 per cent of exports) working with Japanese trading companies which, in turn, supplied the four major international tyre producers.

25. Government policy and priorities for the agricultural sector are directed towards increasing production and returns to smallholder farmers through rehabilitation of feeder roads, restoration of rural marketing networks, strengthening of land tenure and provision of essential services, such as rural water and primary health care.

At the same time, smallholder farmers need easier access to markets to sell their crops for a fair price, rather than relying on expensive middlemen or inefficient government bodies. An alternative would be to establish some form of cooperative or contract based farm association that can negotiate fair prices.

The current emphasis of IWMI research projects is on identifying the linkages between irrigation and poverty scientifically documenting the relationship between irrigation water management and the environment, especially regarding wetlands and examining existing smallholder and or community experiences in rehabilitating degraded agro ecosystems and the opportunities for replication.

51. In an effort to encourage the participation of the private sector in issues regarding regional cooperation, IFAD has financed two related activities a smallholder policy initiative for eastern and southern Africa, together with COMESA, and a programme to strengthen the African Regional Rural Credit Association, through technical exchanges.

8. Recognizes the importance of relevant institutions providing effective mechanisms for public private agricultural advisory services as well as extension, financial and market services to farmers, in particular smallholder farmers, so that the benefits of new knowledge, agricultural innovation systems and improved technology may reach them and be used by them

During 2002 2006, I led the United Nations Millennium Project, which aimed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, for then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. One cornerstone of the project was smallholder farmers, meaning peasant farm families in Africa, Latin America, and Asia working farms of around one hectare (2.5 acres) or less.

Article 42 If, before having obtained title or full ownership of the plot, a smallholder dies, the other members of the family unit shall be entitled, pursuant to the proviso of Article 14 hereof, to continue to own and manage such plot and shall remain in compliance with the terms of the Conditional Sales Contract.

If smallholder farmers are to be given the opportunity to become viable businesses, it is essential that they be connected to markets. Indeed, support for rural infrastructure including last mile roads, electrification, post harvest facilities, support for agricultural associations and cooperatives, and access to land and irrigation facilities is a crucial element in the value chain.

Getting seed and fertilizer to smallholder farmers at highly subsidized prices (or even free in some cases) will make a lasting difference. Not only will food yields rise in the short term, but farm households will use their higher incomes and better health to accumulate all sorts of assets cash balances, soil nutrients, farm animals, and their children s health and education.

Moreover, smallholder farmers who are essential to productive, stable, resilient, and equitable agricultural development should be given the needed tools and support to capture more benefits from value chains, while minimizing risk. This requires building and maintaining fair and efficient input and output markets that connect them as well as larger scale farmers physically and virtually to opportunities to increase their incomes.

If smallholder farmers have the basic infrastructure they need to get their goods to market, they will not only be able to feed themselves and their communities, but will contribute to wider food security. We just need to put the pavement down so that farmers like those I saw in Zambia can more easily make their way on the road to food security.

The Bank similarly missed crucial opportunities to support smallholder subsistence farmers and to promote integrated rural development more generally in impoverished rural communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For around 20 years, roughly from 1985 to 2005, the Bank resisted the well proven use of targeted support for small landholders to enable impoverished subsistence farmers to improve yields and break out of poverty.

ROME Recently, I was on a road in the Southern Choma District of Zambia to meet with Rosemary Pisani, a smallholder farmer and mother of eight who struggled to feed her children prior to joining a farmer s cooperative to raise goats. Thanks to the cooperative and support from other farmers, she now has a thriving business and all of her children are in school.