The risks agriculture faces in developing countries
Synthesis of an online debate*
A
AWhat sets the growing of food apart from all other production comes down to two facts — one political, one natural. Politically, each of us needs food every day and can claim it as a right; naturally, no other industry leans so heavily on the natural world. Together these leave food production peculiarly exposed, unlike any ordinary business; and the cultural weight of food and farming runs deep everywhere.
B
BFor those taking part, the question that mattered most was why the farming system so often fails to feed everyone. The root causes had to be tackled first, they argued, and two stood out: a heavy reliance on fossil fuels and a lack of supportive government policy.
C
CRisk is familiar to anyone who farms. Violent weather, the slow shift of the climate and swinging prices for supplies and produce threaten growers everywhere. Smallholders in poorer countries carry more still, hemmed in by natural obstacles — thin soils, unreliable rain — and human ones alike, from patchy roads and finance to weak markets and little access to knowledge and technology. The bitter irony is that many of these small farmers go hungry themselves.
D
DOn easing these risks, most contributors looked to the state to do more. Dario Fenwick, who heads the Global Fund for Rural Development, argued that a government can lower farmers' exposure simply by supplying the basics — roads that carry crops to market faster, or stores for water and food that stop so much being lost. Helena Marsh, a senior adviser at the Centre for Farming and Trade Policy, added that when governments buy up and hold reserves, sharp lurches in food prices tend to soften, since doubts about market supply are eased.
E
ERonan Petrescu, who directs the World Food Policy Institute, pointed to the welfare schemes run in countries such as Kenya, Peru and Guatemala as a real way to lift farming households out of poverty and cushion them against agricultural shocks. Several commentators were unconvinced: handing cash to poor families, they noted, does not automatically buy food security, since such schemes neither guarantee a bigger harvest nor a larger income. On subsidies, Amara Diallo, who runs the Rural Women's Advancement Network, was blunt — the payments, she wrote, 'have done nothing to loosen the grip of private traders. Close to seventy percent of those who collect subsidies are not the poor at all, but wealthy landowners and dealers who never farm.'
F
FFor Fenwick, Marsh and Petrescu there was also a place for private instruments — insurance, commodity futures and rural credit — which help a small producer spread risk and find money to invest in improvements. Diallo warned that such financial support often nudges farmers towards input-hungry methods that, a few seasons on, push the cost of growing above what the crop will fetch. Marsh cautioned that futures markets, once too financial in character, may themselves stir up the short-term price swings that leave farmers less food-secure. A recurring theme was that markets must be far more open, so volatility is blunted and it becomes plain whether stocks are sufficient. Some added that agribusiness firms ought to foot the bill for the harm they cause.
G
GAnother current favoured letting farmers manage risk from the ground up, through co-operatives, producer bodies and other collective action. Banding together, the argument ran, opens markets otherwise closed to a small grower, trims selling costs, and times buying and selling to seasonal prices. Marsh put it plainly: acting together is among the surest ways for farmers to build political and economic bargaining muscle and take the edge off the risks of the trade. Tomas Vogel offered a note of realism, cautioning that collective action is never had for nothing — organising it, earning trust and trying things out all swallow time, effort and money. Others, among them Joris Halbertsma and Ruben Klaassen, held that to 'act on what we already know', everyone with a stake — companies, governments, scientists, citizens — must pull together from the first link in the value chain.
H
HClimate change ran through many essays as a threat to small-scale farming. As Petrescu put it, a warming world not only cuts harvests but makes violent weather fiercer and more frequent, leaving the smallholder yet more exposed; and the harder the weather is to predict, the harder it is to plan against. His remedy was to breed crop varieties tougher in the face of the new climate and its extremes. Lars Ostergaard, who co-founded and directs the AgroWatch Collective, pushed the same way: surviving the changing climate, he argued, will need policies that let farming people widen the range of plants and animals — the species and breeds — from which our meals are drawn.
I
IPart of what makes prices so unstable, some explained, is the middleman — the buyer who steps between farmer and market and, exploiting the grower's weak position, sets the price to suit himself. Cut those buyers out and sell straight to those who eat the food, one contributor suggested, and a farmer regains command over prices and sees them steady. Priya Nandakumar, who founded and advises the Institute for Mountain Environment and Livelihoods (IMEL), made a kindred case for community-supported agriculture, a model she felt deserved more notice: consumers put money into nearby farms by subscription and promise the grower a fair return, so the risk is shared. Selling directly, she added, not only keeps small farms alive but gives buyers more say over what they eat.
J
J* The personal names in the text refer to the authors of written contributions to the online debate.
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Question 1 - 3
Which paragraph contains the following information?
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
1.
a description of what makes the supplying of food unlike any other industry
2.
an account of hardships that burden growers in only some regions of the world
3.
a reminder that getting farmers to pool their efforts is far from cost-free