Framework for Action
Agriculture for Growth and Sustainability in the 21st Century[1]
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Millennium Development Goals and Agriculture: A Close Link 3
Key Strategic Elements 6
§ Making broad-based agricultural and rural 6
development a priority
§ Institutional reforms and rural development 7
§ Mobilizing science and technology for sustainable 7
intensification of agriculture
§ Improving support services for sustainable agriculture 8
§ Rural finance and wealth creation 9
§ Infrastructure development 9
§ Legal frameworks for land tenure and taxation policy 9
§ Improving natural resource management and 10
addressing climate change
§ Addressing agriculture-food-health links 10
§ Pro-poor globalization 11
Partnerships for Action 11
Conclusion 12
Introduction
Three of every four poor people in the developing world – 900 million in all – live in rural areas and depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture is the single most important sector in the economies of most low-income countries, accounting for one-fourth to one-half of gross domestic product (GDP) and the bulk of export earnings. Hence agriculture and rural development must be on the front lines of any successful assault on poverty.
Inappropriate agricultural practices, such as mining soil fertility, especially on fragile lands contribute to natural resource degradation, but appropriate agricultural policies and practices can contribute enormously to environmental protection. Converting unproductive croplands and grasslands to agroforestry by integrating crop and tree cultivation helps soak up maximum amounts of atmospheric carbon low-productivity (at rates on the order of 3 tons of carbon per hectare per year), helping reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Low productivity in agriculture is a major cause of poverty, food insecurity, and poor nutrition in low-income developing countries, resulting in low incomes for farmers and farm workers; high costs per unit of food produced, and therefore high consumer prices; little demand for goods and services produced by poor non-agricultural rural households; and urban unemployment and underemployment. Too often, poor farmers clear forest, or farm marginal land, because they lack access to high quality farm land.
In contrast, broad-based agricultural growth will spur overall economic development, since every new dollar earned by farmers in low-income countries raises incomes in the economy as a whole by up to US$2.60. A healthy agricultural economy also provides incentives to farmers to engage in environmentally sustainable practices, especially if they enjoy secure property rights to the land.
In the lead-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) there is a pressing need to focus on concerted actions that target poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation as these are essential for promoting sustainable growth. The importance of sustainable agriculture and rural development is clearly recognized in Agenda 21. Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified five priority areas – WEHAB for water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity – as critical global challenges of the 21st century. More recently, messages from a Ministerial Roundtable, “Agriculture for Food Security and Sustainable Rural Development,” held on June 6, 2002 during the Fourth Preparatory meeting (Ministerial Level) for WSSD in Bali, Indonesia also underscored the importance of agriculture in promoting economic growth, food security, improved management of natural resources, and broad-based rural development – all essential pillars of sustainable development.
This paper outlines a strategic framework for elevating the importance of agriculture for growth and sustainability in the 21st century, outlines the close link between agriculture and international development targets, identifies key strategic elements, and concludes by identifying partnerships and priority actions in the agriculture and rural development sectors as key components of the sustainable development agenda.
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Agriculture: A Close Link
The eight MDGs agreed upon at the September 2000 Millennium Summit aim to eradicate the varied dimensions of poverty and achieve sustainable development. They provide a unique opportunity to coordinate efforts and combine resources of a diverse range of development partners. Agriculture and rural development are vital for achieving a majority of MDGs, and progress on these goals can in turn advance agriculture and rural development:
Ø MDG 1 Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
Halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day (from 29 to 14.5 percent of all people in low and middle-income countries) requires 3.6 percent growth in per capita incomes, nearly twice the rate of the past decade. Most of the poor people live in the rural areas. Productive on-farm and off-farm activities are critical to reducing poverty in rural communities.
This MDG also calls for halving the proportion of people who are undernourished, while the World Food Summit goal is to reduce the number by half. The number of undernourished people in developing world fell from 840 million in 1990 to 777 million in 1998, and if no new measures are taken is expected to decrease by about 100 million by 2015. That will leave us far from achieving the objective of no more than 400 million food insecure people. At the current rate of progress, every year only 6 million people are gaining freedom from hunger, and in the 1990s, almost all of that progress occurred in China. That figure must increase more than three-fold, to 22 million people per year, and reduction of hunger must occur broadly in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia where three-fifths of food insecure people live. The battle against hunger must be fought and won in rural areas, as during the Green Revolution era: between 1970 and 1998, the proportion of food insecure people in developing countries fell more than half, from 37 to 17 percent, as agricultural productivity gains made 26 percent more food per person available.
Ø MDG 2 Achieve universal primary education
Assuring that all children receive primary education will make them more productive farmers and workers as adults and will contribute to significant gains in income (helping to achieve MDG1). For example, in Kenya, a year of primary education provided to female farmers would boost maize yields by 24 percent. In less-favored rural areas of China and India, public investment in education has significant returns in terms of poverty reduction and economic growth. Increases in female education accounted for 43 percent of the reduction in child malnutrition between 1970 and 1995. Currently, however, only 46 percent of school-aged girls are enrolled. The benefits of well-fed children having better attention spans, higher rates of school enrollment and higher learning capacities are well recognized.
Ø MDG 3 Promote gender equality and empower women
Women are the nurturers of families and ecosystems, and account for the bulk of the agricultural workforce in low-income countries. They provide up to 80 percent of the labor input for domestically grown food in Sub-Saharan Africa and play major roles in the production of both food and non-food crops in developing countries. A vibrant agricultural sector helps to promote economic opportunities for women, allowing them to build assets, increase incomes, and improve family welfare – all essential steps to empowerment of women. Conversely, gender equality is important for agriculture and rural development: in Sub-Saharan Africa, when women farmers obtain the same levels of education, experience, access to services such as extension, and farm inputs as male farmers, they increase staple food crop yields by 22 percent.
Ø MDG 4 Reduce child mortality
Malnutrition is a factor in more than half the deaths of children under five in developing countries. Increased food availability accounted for 25 percent of the reduction in child malnutrition over 1970-95, so productivity increases in agriculture are important for gains in child survival, especially in conjunction with gains in female school enrollments. In addition, nutritional quality of foods is a critical element. Food-based approaches to micronutrient malnutrition (e.g., promotion of dietary diversity and biofortification) can and should be integrated into agricultural development efforts.
Ø MDG 5 Improve maternal health
Unhealthy, malnourished mothers and women farmers are more likely to have low birth weight babies, who in turn are susceptible to malnutrition and disease. About 25 percent of newborns in developing countries are considered to have low birth weights. Gains in agricultural productivity can help break this cycle of passing malnutrition from one generation to the next by improving incomes and nutrition.
Ø MDG 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
With 40 million already infected, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is a major development challenge. Poor people and farming communities in rural areas are hit hardest, affecting agricultural productivity at the farm level, and leading to depletion of assets, skills, knowledge, social bonds, and economic opportunities. Since 1985, more than 7 million agricultural workers were lost to the pandemic in 25 most-affected countries, resulting in 14 million person years of agricultural labor lost to date. Those affected are forced to turn to less nutritious and economically valuable crops that are easier to produce. Malaria often strikes during harvest time, threatening agriculture. Globalization of animal diseases – such as the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease – has caused billions of dollars in losses, and required culling 4 million head of cattle in the United Kingdom. With demand for meat and milk products expected to more than double by 2020, links between livestock diseases and human health will be increasingly important. About half of the 1,700 organisms causing diseases in humans are naturally transmitted from animals.
Ø MDG 7 Ensuring environmental sustainability
Agriculture is the primary interface between human beings and the environment, accounting for the bulk of natural resources used, such as land and water. Agricultural activities – land cultivation, fresh water use, mining of aquifers for irrigation, habitat encroachment through agricultural expansion – have transformed between one-third and one-half of the earth’s land surface, and current practices are threatening long-term sustainability. For sustainable development to occur, reducing agriculture’s large and growing ecological footprint is critical. For example, biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Twenty-five locations around the world, occupying only 1.4 per cent of the earth, contain more than 60 per cent of the planet’s plant and animal species. Sustainable intensification of agriculture is needed – more yield per unit amount of land and of water, with concomitant improvements in institutional support, incentives, infrastructure, and inputs. The development of high-yielding Green Revolution crop varieties beginning in the late 1960s is estimated to have preserved over 300 million hectares (equivalent to more than the combined total farmland of the United States, Canada, and Brazil) of forests and grasslands, including considerable wildlife habitat. This conserved biodiversity and reduced the amount of carbon that would have been released into the atmosphere. Climate change is projected to have mostly positive impacts on agricultural productivity in temperate zones and could have severe adverse effects in arid, semi-arid, and tropical areas. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the most vulnerable region. Improved farming practices and applying agro-ecosystem approaches will help ensure the viability of agriculture in future, not only for providing food, fuel and fiber but also for allowing farmers to become better stewards of the global environment and provide valuable ecosystem services to an increasingly urbanizing world.
Ø MDG 8 Developing a global partnership for development
Given the predominance of the agricultural sector in developing countries, growth in this vital sector is essential for combating poverty. Partnerships are key, as are investments in the rural sector, mobilizing science and technology, including specialized knowledge and skills, improved food policies, strengthened institutions, and a more open and equitable trading system. Regional cooperation to strengthen governance and agriculture-related institutions and increasing multilateral support for regional cooperation (e.g. NEPAD, and other initiatives in Asia and Latin America) are both needed. This MDG is critical for establishing an action agenda that can be implemented.
Key Strategic Elements
In recent times, the agricultural sector has suffered from a combination of waning public interest, declining investments, pervasive urban bias, poor performance, inappropriate policies, and weak institutions. The decades of the 1980s and 1990s saw a precipitous decline in funding for agriculture and rural development, as donors transferred resources to other sectors and to higher-income countries and developing countries lowered the priority given to agriculture and rural development. In 1998, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa devoted just 4 percent of their budgets to agriculture, while in South Asia, the figure was 5 percent. Official development assistance (ODA) to agriculture and rural development that same year was 6 percent lower in real terms than in 1990. The World Bank’s lending for rural development is the lowest in 50 years. Fortunately, there is a renewed focus on the imperatives of broad-based rural development among bilateral and multilateral development institutions and developing country governments. African governments have identified agriculture as a priority sector in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). An overview of key strategic elements to support sustainable agriculture and rural development is provided below. Given the centrality of agriculture and rural development to poverty reduction, these must become a key feature of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and receive adequate technical and financial assistance from donors.
§ Making broad-based agricultural and rural development a priority
Agricultural and rural development will only be broad-based if poor rural dwellers have access to agricultural resources, including land, water, and credit, as well as employment opportunities on and off the farm. They must also have access to opportunities to engage in entrepreneurship, including small-scale trade and agricultural processing and service businesses. Equitable contracting arrangements and farmer-driven, accountable organizations, such as cooperatives, are mechanisms that can help assure that poor farmers have access to resources. Sound policies for investment in human resources, including basic education, primary health care, clean water, safe sanitation, and good nutrition for all are likewise critical.
Well-functioning and well-integrated markets for agricultural inputs, commodities, and processed goods, along with transparent and responsive supporting institutions and infrastructure (farm-to-market roads, ports, telecommunications, electricity, small-scale irrigation systems, and post-harvest facilities), will contribute enormously to poverty alleviation. Market performance improves and costs fall when government no longer monopolizes trade. Government retains an important role in providing essential public goods, such as contract enforcement, establishment of grading and quality standards, maintenance of public safety and health, creation of infrastructure, and implementation of credible, sustainable, and transparent macroeconomic policies. All these are necessary to facilitate private sector development.