In line with the United Nations declaration of 2014 as the ‘International Year of Family Farming’ (IYFF), the first of its kind, Daniel Essiet looks at the prospects of leveraging on it to create jobs.
With its declaration of 2014 as the International Year of Family farming, the United Nations has made a case for the return of the family to the farms. It realised that there cannot an adequate local food system without family farming, which produces the food that feeds billions.
Family farms are defined as farms that rely primarily on family members for labour and management. Such farms, according to the FAO, produce the food that feeds billions of people across the world. In developed and developing countries alike, they are the main producers of food consumed locally, the primary stewards of food security.
According to FAO statistics, there are over 400 million family farms in developed and developing countries.
In its declaration, the UN must have drawn inspiration from experiences in many countries, which show that family farmers respond well with increased production if the appropriate policies are put in place. The thinking is that nothing comes close to sustainable food production than family farming.
Taking a cue from other climes where family farms are thriving, the Federal Government has introduced a growth enhancement scheme to support farmers to rebuild the local food system. It is aimed at supplying farmers with farm inputs auch as seeds and fertiliser, among others. by encouraging family farming.
The government, recognising the import of family farming, which is almost extinct in the country, has made the success of Kelvin Obaji, an indigene of Ikom in Ikom Local Government Area of Cross River State, on his farmily farm a reference point.
Obaji has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from a university in the United States. On his return to Nigeria, he took over his father’s cocoa farm. The farm, until the death of his father, was a family business and its main source of income.
With his successful exploits, Obaji is showing the way for many to turn to family farming. A return to this aspect of farming, many experts agree, will boost local food system as it is mainly practised in the rural areas.
According to them, rebuilding the local food system via family farming provides enormous opportunities for the nation to feed its teeming population while creating millions of jobs.
They said a growing number of countries, aid organisations, including the UN, have been insisting that unless urgent efforts were made to raise crop yields and sustain family and other farming methods, most countries, particularly the developing ones, will fail to reach their development goals.
Speaking with The Nation, the Acting Provost, Oyo State College of Agriculture, Igboora, Oyo State, Prof. Jacob Adewale, said with the declaration, the quest was on for a truly sustainable farming system that can meet future food needs. He stressed that family farmers are the main solution to food security and sustainable development, adding that owners manage the farm land, producing a high proportion of a country’s food. He also said family farmers are agents of employment generation. They also play critical roles in inclusion for millions of poor rural communities.
“They promote inclusion, teach sustainability and offer a space where youths can meet, learn, share and build social capital,” Adewale said, noting that when family farmers are economically and socially empowered, they become a potent force for change.
For him, how farm land is acquired, held in ownership, operated or rented has always been a matter of national interest.
The problems of farm tenure, however, are not limited to matters of ownership, inheritance, tenancy and the interests of farm labour, but include credit, prices of farm land, land appraisal, land-use programmes, land-settlement policies and rural living standards.
On access and control over land, Adewale said family farmers have an advantage over others as they have an inheritance to rely on, which helps them to cope with the challenges of land tenure system.
The Acting Head of Department, Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Dr Eniola Fabuson, said urban family farmers could use gardens to mainstream organic farms to produce food and eradicate malnutrition and poverty.
With many Nigerians buying into organic farm produce, Fabuson said urban gardens are a part of nutrition education, food security programmes and offer a variety of benefits to the sector. He said policies for family farming should promote regional centres and small towns, which provide alternative employment in the artisanal, industrial and service sectors, and stimulate the local economy, thus, reducing migration.
A researcher with the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, United Kingdom, Dr Ola Ogunyinka, also recognised the importance of small – and medium-scale farmers in a nation’s development agenda.
According to him, family farmers play a pivotal role in the local production, marketing and consumption circuits that are so important not only in fighting hunger but in creating jobs, generating income and stimulating and diversifying local economies.
Ogunyinka, therefore, urged the government to empower family farmers by creating policies conducive for equitable and sustainable rural development. To him, encouraging family farms to scale up business could be the next growth frontier. He said boosting agriculture and building family farms was crucial as it would create millions of much-needed jobs and create wealth which guarantees food security.
The Country Manager, Cassava Adding Value to Africa,Tanzania, Mrs Grace Mahende, said financial and infrastructural support for small-scale family farmers was crucial to winning the fight against hunger. She said roads, access to stable electricity, energy, potable water and good governance are also key to making the business environment attractive in developing countries. Smallholder agriculture needs to be seen as a business, Mrs Mahende said.
According to her, securing land tenure and access to resources for family farms are among the key solutions to improving the livelihoods and food security of communities.
She said the benefit of rebuilding a local food system would go to those who need it most: small farmers not well suited to producing crops on an industrial scale.
She said most of farmers do not have access to local markets to sell their produce and are quitting farming.
Mrs Mahende, therefore, urged the government to enhance its infrastructure provision to ensure farmers can sell their produce to stem the drift by families from farming. She also implored the government to include more incentives in its scheme so that families that have abandoned farming can go back to it.
Obaji said he had no regrets leaving engineering for farming, urging other graduates across the country who have family farms to return and take up the challenge farming them instead roaming about searching fo non existent white collar jobs.
