Undertanding what Family Farming entails..................

Toki Oshima Potryal of  Family centered farming

If you've been going through most of Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO)  repository from last week of November 2013, you will notice the continued appearance of IYFF or as its called the International Year of Family Farming. Which in turn makes you wonder,what does family farming entail and  why did they  FAO designate 2014 to be the year of family farming?

Picture this hypothetical scenario.

Mary* lives on a 5 acre farm together with her parents and her five siblings. Mary's father acquired this land in Meru after the piece he had inherited from his father became too small for any productive farm activity to be undertaken. In this land which has been Mary's home for the last 10 years, they grow maize, legumes and at the same time keep poultry,sheep and dairy cows.

Being quite a large family, they rarely outsource labour but instead Mary and her siblings provide the same in the farms.The income from the sale of the farm produce is used to cater for some expenses like education, medical and stuff. The family rarely buys food as they get the same from the farm.

For Mary's family, the farm is everything, the producer, the provider, the teacher. Its where Mary and her siblings got firsthand the virtues of hard work and caring for the crops and animals.

Mary's family scenario isn't alone.

Photo Credit: Fredhoogenvorst

They belong together with other 600 million smallholder farmers and herders globally who tirelessly work to provide food to the +7 billion people in the world. This in itself comes with quite a lot of challenges the likes of a rapid growing population in need of being fed, water scarcity for farmlands, lack of land, unending hunger and malnutrition and climate change. In line with recognizing the smallholder farmers and their contribution to food security, FAO designated 2014 as the Year of Family Farming  to bring to attention the family farms, the challenges they face and hence find sustainable ways of helping these farmers .

 Family farms have the potential of not only feeding the population but also for nurturing the next generation of farmers while at the same time providing employment opportunities and caring for the environment. The benefits are quite widespread.


At the same time, let us not forgot that the majority of smallholder farmers are women. Advocating for women and youth inclusive moves would go a long way in meeting the 4 key  objectives of the #IYFF which are outlined as thus;

• Support the development of  policies that aim at creating a suitable operating environment for family farming.
• Increase public awareness on the importance of family farming.
• Enhance the understanding of the potentials and challenges that face family farming.
• Create synergies  with other global causes to enhance sustainability of the #IYFF

Photo Credit Melanie Cook

The ball is now in our court!

Join/follow the conversation on twitter via  #IYFF


Related Articles for Further Reading
Opinion: This is the moment
Theme overview - Ten qualities of family farming

* Indicates a purely fictional character.

Smallholders access to improved technology:Challenges and Opportunities

Goats loitering outside one of Equity Bank branches.

Whenever you pry in to the the world of agricultural publications, two major keywords stand out from the rest. Technology and smallholder farmers. 

Technology in this case being any creation/idea that makes life easier in a more efficient way. This could be low cost tech or non tech innovation with a potential for replication in other areas be it in the area of improved seeds variety,facilitating access to farm inputs,provision of better ways of storage and access to information among many others. Such if adopted by smallholder farmers have the potential of Increasing yields, improving labor productivity hence increasing agricultural productivity which in turn raises their incomes and subsequently boosts the economic growth of a country.

But this isn't the current scenario  in most developing countries.

Smallholder farmers happen to be the bulk of farming in developing countries. In Kenya for instance, they  take 75% of the total agricultural production with very few having access to improved technology. With a view to improving the situation through dialogue, Agrilinks sought to unveil the reasons behind this by featuring experts Milton Lore of  Kenya Feed the Future Innovation Engine, Bob Rabatsky of  Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation and Kristen Gendron of   USAID Development Innovation Ventures in a Twitter Chat dubbed "Smallholders Access to Improved Technology". 

the #AskAg twitter chat team is answering questions about #AgTech for smallholder farmers right now! Join in! pic.twitter.com/WZHRe16K0B
— Charlie Weems (@charlieweems) July 16, 2013

Fostering discussions on Twitter under the guidance of selected questions, (See them Here), and the #AskAg , key players and agricultural enthusiasts were able to air their views as to what are the major reasons behind low tech adoption for smallholders in developing countries were. Among those stated include:

• Lack of pre-investment education and subsequent training on product service agreements and product guarantees.
• Lack of access to finances/capital for the smallholders to buy equipment and improved inputs.
• Lack of after sales service especially where equipment sale to rural farmers is involved. Breakage/ malfunction of one part renders the whole equipment useless.
• Unwillingness to invest in the technology as they lack beliefs on the importance of the new innovation.
• Illiteracy especially where the technology isn't translated to languages the smallholder farmers can understand.
• Cultural beliefs and values in certain communities might hinder technology adoption.
• Lack of proper demonstration of the product use which in turn renders the product ineffective.
• Limited number of agricultural extension workers to aid in technology adoption.
• Environmental factors and poor infrastructure. Farmers are unwilling to invest in new technology if their produce has no hope of reaching the market.
• Lack of participatory approaches between farmers and the developers of technology.
• Uneven subsidies for farming inputs and government regulations inhibit adoption too.
• Market failure while introducing these new technologies.

Nevertheless, not all is lost. Interested companies can assess the technology needs and size of the bottom of Pyramid agricultural markets by:

• Ensuring the presence of on the ground partners who have a wide range of knowledge on both local crop science and institutional constraints.
• Viewing the market with a local perspective. Foreign entities have a tendency to amplify the addressable market using a foreign definition of the need.
• Engaging the grassroots of the farming communities in research and technology development for ease in technology adoption.
• Presence of demonstration projects that allow smallholders to experiment firsthand with the technology and define the technology value for their communities.
• Encourage iteration by investing in stages to test,adapt and scale new approaches based on prior evidence gathered. 
• Understanding customer profiles and the agricultural value chains as composition of BoP markets differ across countries.
• Taking note of intercultural sensitivity when introducing new technologies.

Despite these opportunities, companies are still unwilling to package and market these technologies to smallholder farmer with major reasons being:

• Lack of market information on the needs of smallholder farmers that highlights their unmet demand.
• Lack of willing partnerships to cover the problem of lack of access to finances.
• Poor protection of intellectual property.
• High costs involved as pertains to reaching smallholders be it in transportation, training or in the development of distribution channels hence projecting a low Return on Investment.
• Conflicts and political instabilities in some areas.

When all is said and done, the situation is not all that bleak. Some ventures across the world are facilitating smallholders' access to improved technology. These include, but aren't limited to;

1. Sygenta's  Kilimo Salama , a weather based insurance application ow.ly/n1i99
2. Harvest Mark who are are using QR codes for traceability of produce and food.
3. Freedom Fone who use interactive Voice Response and SMS to address illiteracy barriers
4. Digital Green inexpensive video technology that helps farmers share innovations in India
5. The Purdue ag Hermetic grain storage technology that increases small scale farmers capital with storage of grains during off season for sale during peak seasons .
6. Promethean Power a thermal battery off-grid refrigeration at dairy cooperatives in India

Are you aware of other technological innovations aiding smallholders access to improved technology? Feel free to share in the comments section below.

For a complete list of the shared links during the chat,kindly visit http://agrilinks.org/blog/recap-askag-twitter-chat-smallholder-access-improved-technology

Also you can read through My Storify for a quick summary of the Tweet Chat discussion.