A New Deal for Poor Farmers
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
NEW YORK Many poor, food-importing countries around the world have become
desperate in
recent months, as global prices of rice, wheat, and maize have doubled.
Hundreds of millions of poor people, who already spend a large share of their
daily budget on food, are being pushed to the edge. Food riots are mounting.
But many poor
countries can grow more food themselves, because their farmers are producing
far below what is technologically possible. In some cases, with appropriate
government action, they could double or even triple food production in just a
few years.
The idea is basic
and well known. Traditional farming uses few inputs and gets poor yields. Poor
peasants use their own seeds from the preceding season, lack fertilizer, depend
on rain rather than irrigation, and have little if any mechanization beyond a
traditional hoe. Their farms are small, perhaps one hectare (2.5 acres) or
less.
Under traditional
agricultural conditions, the yields of grain rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, or
millet are usually around one ton per hectare, for one planting season per
year. For a farm family of five or six living on one hectare, this means
extreme poverty, and for their country, it means reliance on expensive food
imports, including food aid.
The solution is
to increase grain yields to at least two tons and in some places to three or
more tons per hectare. If water can be managed through irrigation, this could
be combined with multi-cropping (multiple harvests per year) to produce a crop
during the dry season. Higher and more frequent yields mean less poverty in
farm families, and lower food prices for cities.
The key to
increasing yields is to ensure that even the poorest farmers have access to
improved seed varieties (usually hybrid seeds created by scientific selection
of seed varieties), chemical fertilizers, organic matter to replenish soil
nutrients, and, where possible, small-scale irrigation methods, such as a pump
to lift water from a nearby well. There is nothing magic about this combination
of high-yield seeds, fertilizer, and small-scale irrigation. It is the key to
the worldwide increase in food production since the 1960s.
The problem is
that these improved inputs have bypassed the poorest farmers and the poorest
countries. When peasants lack their own saving accounts and collateral, they
are unable to borrow from banks to buy seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation. As a
result, they grow food the traditional way, often earning little or nothing
from their harvest, because its not even enough to keep their families alive.
History has shown
that government action is required to help the poorest farmers escape the
low-yield poverty trap. If farmers can be helped to obtain simple technologies,
income can rise, and they can accumulate bank balances and collateral. With a
bit of temporary help, perhaps lasting around five years, farmers can build up
enough wealth to obtain inputs on a market basis, either through direct
purchases from savings or through bank loans.
Around the world,
government-run agricultural banks in poor countries once not only financed
inputs, but also provided agricultural advice and spread new seed technologies.
Of course, there were abuses, such as the allocation of public credits to
richer farmers rather than to needy ones, or the prolonged subsidization of
inputs even after farmers became creditworthy. And in many cases, government
agricultural banks went bankrupt. Still, the financing of inputs played a huge
and positive role in helping the poorest farmers to escape poverty and
dependency on food aid.
During the debt
crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank
forced dozens of poor food-importing countries to dismantle these state
systems. Poor farmers were told to fend for themselves, to let market forces
provide for inputs. This was a profound mistake: there were no such market
forces.
Poor farmers lost
access to fertilizers and improved seed varieties. They could not obtain bank
financing. To its credit, the World Bank recognized this mistake in a scathing
internal evaluation of its long-standing agricultural policies last year.
The time has come
to reestablish public financing systems that enable small farmers in the
poorest countries, notably those farming on two hectares or less, to gain
access to needed inputs of high-yield seeds, fertilizer, and small-scale
irrigation. Malawihas done this for the past three seasons,
and has doubled its food production as a result. Other low-income countries
should follow suit.
Importantly, the
World Bank, under its new president, Robert Zoellick, has now stepped forward
to help finance this new approach. If the Bank provides grants to poor countries
to help small peasant farmers gain access to improved inputs, then it will be
possible for those countries to increase their food production in a short
period of time.
Donor
governments, including the oil-rich countries of the Middle East, should help
finance the World Banks new
efforts. The world should set as a practical goal of doubling grain yields in
low-income Africaand similar regions (such as Haiti) during the next five
years. Thats
achievable if the World Bank, donor governments, and poor countries direct
their attention to the urgent needs of the worlds poorest farmers.
Jeffrey Sachs is
Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at
ColumbiaUniversity.
Copyright:
Project Syndicate, 2008.http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs141
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