Jim Cornelius, executive director of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, explores ways we can help alleviate world hunger.
There is much debate as to how best to feed a hungry world. It often focuses on the effectiveness of high-input, technology-based solutions.
These input-driven approaches may be relevant for larger-scale agriculture systems, such as Canada, but they remain out of reach for many of the world’s farmers.
Rather, it is the experience of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank that simple technologies coupled with good management practices offer real potential for alleviating hunger among the world’s poorest people.
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As a Christian response to hunger, the foodgrains bank has many years of experience working with partner agencies in delivering agricultural programs in developing countries.
We welcome the debate around how best to feed the world. After all, world population is expected to rise to an estimated nine billion people by 2050, ensuring food security will be a challenge for years to come.
But that challenge is present today too. Approximately 925 million people were deemed food insecure in 2009. Most of them live in rural areas, and most are small-scale farmers.
There are numerous reasons for their food insecurity, including unstable markets, conflict, lack of technology, lack of capital, weak infrastructure, poor governance and a changing climate.
Private sector players are eager to promote high external input solutions, such as hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers, where there are ready markets.
But there is little money to be made with these types of interventions among the world’s poorest farmers, no matter how useful they might be.
In contrast, our experience is that in many contexts, simple agriculture technologies and management practices can improve food production for the smallholder farmer and reduce hunger in the world–and they are already doing so.
They require new knowledge delivered through well-developed agriculture extension services, but without reliance on high-cost inputs. These knowledge-based technologies include conservation agriculture and use of legumes to restore soil fertility.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization defines conservation agriculture as a crop production system that has three pillars: minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations.
In Zimbabwe, the United Church of Canada and the foodgrains bank have been promoting conservation agriculture since 2006. Through the adoption of simple technologies and improved crop management, farmers more efficiently use local resources, especially mulch and manure.
Participating small-scale farmers have observed increased corn yields, reduced labour per unit of production, increased soil organic matter and improved soil moisture use efficiency.
As a result, corn yields for participating small-scale farmers have increased significantly. Farmers are seeing average yield increases from seven bushels per acre before introducing conservation technologies to 25 bu. per acre within the first year of their introduction, and higher yields in following years.
These dramatic changes in corn yields have taken households from the brink of starvation to enough food to feed their families in only one year. The technology of conservation agriculture is particularly useful in drought conditions, a phenomenon that is becoming more common in sub-Saharan Africa.
A major food production constraint in many food insecure areas is limited soil fertility. Many farmers rely on fertilizers to enhance soil fertility. Although useful in many situations, the cost of this input is often beyond the reach of smallholder farmers. A
cost-effective alternative is incorporating legumes into cropping systems.
In Malawi, starting in 2006, Presbyterian World Service and Development and the foodgrains bank have promoted the use of several legumes as intercrops or in rotation with maize to enhance soil fertility and crop production. This resulted in significant yield improvements.
Both conservation agriculture and use of legumes for soil fertility rely on the transfer of knowledge.
Once these technologies are understood and adopted, they can be practised year after year–without a return to the market for new expensive inputs.
This is good news for small-scale farmers around the world.
