Small-scale family farming, an age-old model and sustainable solution for the Global South

Small-scale farmers in Southeast Asia, who have massively shifted from subsistence farming to an agricultural marketing process, often become disillusioned: the agrarian transition, on which the industrial boom of the Tiger Cub economies is based, has not fulfilled its promises over time. "Agricultural intensification practices, adopted by farmers to integrate the market economy, have proven to be less sustainable than traditional practices. The first warning sign is the inexorable drop in crop yields," explains Jean-Christophe Castella, a geo-agronomist in the Knowledge, Environment and Societies research unit (SENS) at IRD, who studies the effects of changing socio-technical models on environmental dynamics and rural economies. "Through the participative processes in which we've involved them, farmers are more aware of deforestation, pollution and the deterioration of their land and their quality of life." The sustained use of chemical inputs to fertilize soil, eliminate self-propagating plants and protect crops from pests, in addition to the optimization of land use by eliminating hedges and fallow land, and mechanical tilling, all have a significant impact on the environment over time. This, in turn, impacts agricultural productivity itself, as ever more material investment is needed for uncertain results Moreover, the introduction of large-scale cash-crop monocultures, such as maize, reduces biodiversity and renders outputs highly vulnerable to parasites. "Below a certain level of landscape diversity, farming is simply not sustainable," says the specialist.

Viable alternatives

Based on this same reasoning, scientists from the Laboratory of Tropical and Mediterranean Symbioses (LSTM) are striving to revive ancient varieties and techniques in order to replace nitrogen fertilizers. Combined with cereals produced by farmers in the Sahel region, these legumes, which form symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi that capture nitrogen in the air and then fix it in the soil to naturally fertilize the land. These specialists are also work toward inoculating the crops themselves with mycorrhiza conducive to such symbioses. "The environmental benefit of this approach is to replace polluting inputs,Chemical fertilizer production is a major source of greenhouse gases. ¹ but also to revive species that have been abandoned through the improvement of varieties related to conventional farming, in favor of varieties that are more productive but less suited to combinations," explains IRD microbiologist Robin Duponnois, who leads this team dedicated to promoting biodiversity conservation.

In regions where such traditions are still passed down from generation to generation, family farming practices still often resemble a genuine form of agroecological engineering. On the slopes of the Moroccan Atlas mountains, for example, the traditional management of forests and livestock herd plays an effective role in limiting erosion and conserving biodiversity. "In this dry, high-altitude region, communities organized into family production units practice rain-fed cereal farming and subsistence livestock farming," explains Didier Genin, an ethno-ecologist in the Population Environment Development Laboratory (LPED) at IRD. Farmers have learned to effectively exploit one of the only assets unique to this environment, the dimorphic ash treeSo-called because its foliage can be composed of small, dense leaves or long, aerial ones, depending on the stage of development and levels of subishe pressure.(Fraxinus dimorpha), in a conscious and sustainable way. The meticulous care given to the periodic pruning of trees, and cyclical, interconnected uses to provide diversified resources – autumn fodder essential to maintaining herds and various building materials – help protect these trees and perpetuate the semi-forested environment needed for the related biodiversity, even in adverse or degraded environmental conditions.

On the fringes of the Sahara desert, in the arid and semi-arid Sudan-Sahelian regions, agroforestry is a centuries-old practice developed through family farming, which is the best defense against rampant desertification. It appeared as soon as the number of inhabitants was too high to continue shifting cultivation practices and involves the sparing of certain trees when clearing the natural environment. These trees provide wood for domestic uses (fire, handicrafts, building) fruits and leaves which are consumed by people or used as food and as fodder for livestock. Through this practice, farmers help preserve the environment and improve their activity, since these trees provide cooling shade, limit other plants' water needs, and some species even fertilize the soil by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. These agroforestry "parks" have therefore enabled the development of food crops, grown in rotation with fallow land, for centuries, despite the particularly harsh natural conditions. "Agricultural mechanization, land fragmentation, the densification of rural populations over 50-100 inhabitants per km² (depending on the region), and nationalized forest management now make it difficult to maintain this cultivation method," explains Josiane Seghieri, a plant ecology specialist in the Functional Ecology and Biogeochemistry of Soils and Agrosystems (Eco&Sols) research unit at IRD. "Family farms that are too small and are no longer self-sufficient in cereals, whose members must find jobs in cities, give up, or no longer provide the care needed to maintain the trees."

As such, this traditional practice is the central focus of an ambitious international initiative to revegetate the edges of the Sahara, in order to combat desertification caused by climate change. This project, called the “Great Green Wall”, brings together over a dozen countries in the region: in addition to targeted reforestation in order to develop crops from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, it promotes the development of a set of systems for sustainable land use and diversified, resilient agropastoral production across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

The quest for the economic inclusion of small-scale farmers in the Global South often focuses on the total or partial conversion from food crops to cash crops that are supposed to be more profitable, such as cotton, coffee, cacao, soy and palm oil. Based on the comparative advantage hypothesisEconomic concept according to which it is in a country's interest to specialize in production for which it has the best competitive advantage, this agrarian transition has sometimes proved to be profitable. As such, genuine development and economic integration opportunities have emerged for small, high-value-added farms in niche markets, such as spices, fruits and raw materials for the cosmetics industry, as illustrated by the highly publicized success stories in this field.

"In the Minas Gerais region of Brazil, coffee was just one crop among others in a diversified polyculture system. In the 1980s-90s it became a monoculture or virtual monoculture practiced in an area of highly fragmented land ownership," explains Isabelle Hillenkamp, a socio-economist at the Centre for Social Sciences Studies on the African, American and Asian Worlds (CESSMA) at IRD. "The new focus on coffee as a commodity andardized commercial productmakes this family farming the last link of a highly unjust globalized production chain, which is far from fulfilling its promises in terms of income." Small-scale farmers have become dependent on intermediaries, the buyers of their production and the suppliers of the inputs required to intensify production. Moreover, this form  of "micro-agribusiness" – the term used by its critics – exacerbates gender inequalities within farms and families. Women are excluded from this commercial activity and the related decisions. They are relegated to subsistence farming on small plots and are socially disempowered. It takes special circumstances to slow the pace of this detrimental race for economic returns: the political will of certain communities committed to an agro-ecological approach with a view to preserving food crop production and the environment which is harmed by intensive coffee farming, or the breakdown of the coffee chain during the COVID pandemic to the benefit of food crops...

Market integration comes with a cost

Downturns in cash-crop prices can act in the same way, by jeopardizing the balance between productive investment in inputs and actual harvest results. Especially since this is a delicate balance: "The productivity of a family farmer in the Global South is 1,000 times lower than a highly mechanized major producer in the Global North linked to an intensive technical system," explains Éric Léonard. "When the former manages to produce a ton of cereals per year and per worker, the latter produces 1,000 tons! What’s more, Northern producers benefit from an arsenal of public subsidies, which further reduce their costs and increase their productivity." Competition is even more severe since the mechanisms for protecting agricultural markets which used to exist in certain countries in the Global South have been dismantled in the name of trade liberalization.With the end of apartheid and the transition toward a market economy in South Africa, as a result of a broader economic reform in India, upon integration in the NAFTA agreement for Brazil, a free trade agreement with the United States for Morocco and a free trade agreement with Europe for Egypt, through structural adjustments for Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria ¹ Certain types of agricultural production in the South have been developed to the detriment of local food crops. Competition from commodities imported from the North has therefore caused them to lose their competitive advantage. "Developing sectors have not been able to absorb population growth in rural areas in Africa, where young people are no longer able to find jobs in traditional farming, which has suffered from international competition," explains the specialist.

Getting out of the micro-agribusiness

Many current initiatives count on the harmonious development of family farming, to escape both poverty and the negative effects of sudden integration into the market economy. For example, in the Sahel region, agroforestry The technique of planting trees and crops in association to improve soil fertility and produce value-added crops. is promoted as an alternative to chemical inputs as well as a way to supplement income for rural communities. "The regeneration of shea treeAlso known as the "butter tree", it bears nuts whose kernels are used to produce shea butter, widely used in cosmetics. agroforestry and its development in communities that do not yet practice it, along with the dissemination of forestry techniques to improve productivity, enable family farms to generate precious income for the needs of rural households," says Hermann Ouoba, a botanist-ecologist at Joseph Ki-Zerbo University in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. This Sahelian tree, whose fruit is used in cosmetics and is the fourth most exported product in the country, grows better in fields with fallow land and food crops than it does anywhere else.

The share of family farming in food production varies greatly from country to country: from 5% in Nigeria and Brazil, to 90% in China.FAO, 2021, https://www.fao.org/news/story/fr/item/1396563/icode/¹ Many family farms use chemical inputs less extensively than farms that face commercial pressure, while maintaining great diversity in production and a certain degree of flexibility to adopt new cultural practices. All of this makes family farming the preferred organizational model for a transition toward sustainable food systems in which agroecology plays an important role. Family farming could therefore provide people with healthier food, which is especially important in addressing the major food hygiene issues facing the Global South. It should also help maintain local markets and reduce the food security threats related to the globalization of trade.

Responding to the junk food epidemic in the Global South

Long confined to rich countries, junk foodDiets that are detrimental to health, and the array of health problems that accompany it, have now spread to the Global South. People in these countries are attracted to the abundance of food offerings supplied by agro-industrial production, considering that it represents a new form of prosperity. And the incidence of chronic diseases related to nutritional imbalances and poor-quality, highly processed foods is now soaring in Central America, South America, the Maghreb, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Oceania. Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other related complications have become serious public health issues, especially in cities. And health systems do not always have the means to treat them effectively. "Urban areas in Africa are hotspots for the development of chronic diet-related diseases," says Éric Verger, a nutritional epidemiology specialist in the MOISA unit at IRD. "Along with cancer, they are set to become the new leading causes of mortality."

The challenges of nutritional quality

Against this backdrop, in which the local industry for highly processed foods represents both a development opportunity for Southern economies and a major health issue, sustainable family farming is a promising alternative that ensures the continued provision of nutritional foods. Consumers in the Global South are starting to become aware of these issues. "In India, since COVID, there has been strong demand among upper middle classes for 'organic' food," explains Isabelle Guérin, an IRD socio-economist at the Centre for Social Sciences Studies of the African, American and Asian Worlds (CESSMA). "This market is exploding, driven by high-profile cases of chemical food contamination. In the absence of the official quality labels used in Western countries, the term ‘natural farming’ is used there, and the government has now taken up this idea by stating that natural farming is inherent to Hinduism." This new market therefore benefits both from the support of the authorities and a portion of the agri-business which has understood the importance of these issues. For now, it is primarily medium-sized farms that have made the transition, given the resources required for fallowing, coping with lower yields and accessing these urban markets. However, certain highly interventionist policies, as in the state of Andhar Pradesh, for example, could foster a massive conversion from small-scale family farming to natural farming, in order to develop a higher-quality food supply for Indian city-dwellers. These food-quality and diversity issues are evidently less prominent for rural populations.

Varied landscapes and regimes

This is important since certain agricultural policies – whether or not they are combined with natural and artificial environmental upheavals (drought, creation of dams etc.) – can severely alter family farming. "In sixty years, communities in the Senegal river valley, for example, have undergone a worrying impoverishment of their food system," says Éric Verger. "These family farms, which once grew a highly diversified crop, based on dry-season sorghum and mainly intended for self-consumption, are now dedicated to intensive, irrigated rice production, alternated with onion and tomato production. This change in agricultural organization has come with a significant loss in nutritional intake." For rural households involved in agricultural production, the quest for food sovereignty for their country, which drove them into commercial rice production, has resulted in a much poorer diet.

"The food crisis of 2007-2008, and the hunger and riots it led to in many Southern countries, made it clear that the liberalization of agricultural markets has been a failure," says Éric Léonard, an IRD socio-economist and geographer in the SENS research unit. The model based on comparative advantages and competitive integration has not led to the desired economic development. But most importantly, it has made Southern countries highly vulnerable to shocks affecting international trade systems. "Indeed, competitive integration, in which needs for food products can be met by relying on international markets, functions poorly in situations where global stocks are tight," he explains. "And it offers no guarantee that the supply will be sustained." This is a lesson many countries have learned at their own expense. As a result, there has been a growing interest in the notion of food sovereignty, which means ensuring a secure food supply base at the national level, instead of relying on international markets to ensure food security. Some countries who can afford to do so, such as those with low agricultural capacity in the Arabian Peninsula, have relied on the externalization of production and corporate farmingA form of agricultural entrepreneurship in which the distribution of capital and labor is the responsibility of separate players. to ensure this supply. "But this strategy based on acquiring land from governments abroad to the detriment of local farming communities  – often described as land-grabbing – puts this powerful corporate farming in competition with family farming systems in less fortunate Southern countries," says Éric Léonard, who is a specialist in land issues. Consequently, securing the supply for certain communities in the Global South could put a strain on that of others, especially poorer countries where family farming helps contribute to food sovereignty.
 

Paradoxically, at the sub-national level, food insecurity hotspots in the Global South are concentrated in rural areas, precisely where agricultural activity predominates. The idea that in order to avoid recurring food shortages, farmers should abandon food crops, which are poverty traps, in favor of specialized crops, is very popular in some development circles. Yet, this model does not work well in many situations, such as in Sub-Saharan Africa, and has adverse effects: dependency, debt, gender inequality, vulnerability to global change. According to FAO experts, family farming, combined with agroecology, is the key pathway toward sustainable food systems. "With its highly diversified production, it offers invaluable resilience to climate change," says Éric Verger. "As within the ongoing DINAAMICC and Innov’Earth projects in Madagascar, research is striving to boost its productivity and resilience, through better integration of livestock rearing into agriculture, participatory varietal selection, practices that support fertility and soil function restoration, and improved yields and nutritional values of food products."