The Daily Observer (Banjul)
Suruwa B. Wawa Jaiteh
26 June 2008
The challenge of productivity growth is the sole basis for the generation of food self-sufficiency. This cannot be avoided, it is the only route.
Therefore, we must be resolved to consider the on-going food crisis as a welcome challenge for the creation of a new targets-based production ethic in the agricultural sector. The global food crisis must commit us to the attainment of food self-reliance, the provision of necessary institutional support facilities and the rectification of previous production failures.
While we should frown at the traditional low level underutilization of our unique comparative advantage, there are compelling reasons to insist on a targets-based production approach as a solution to most of our agro-rural development problems.
The resource-poor farmers who constitute the overwhelming majority of our population and their primary production problems - poverty itself, low production, the unequal access to the basic production necessities/inputs and to the basic opportunities for self-advancement and development - must be recognized as having primary claims on government policies, programmes and resources.
The Challenge
Let me put the record straight. We cannot be Self-sufficient in rice at the moment. Rice self-sufficiency belongs to the post-salinity control measures to be undertaken by the Gambia River Basin Development Organization (OMVG). What we can achieve for the moment, within a short-term targets-based concentrated work period, is rice-based food-sufficiency. In the next write up, I will outline in detail why self-sufficiency in rice is not feasible at the moment and, alongside this, I will also provide a multiple objective planning method.
What can be done?
In the past, agricultural growth in the country has been achieved mainly by cultivating larger areas. However, the potential for area expansion is getting more and more limited. Some underexploited lowland areas remain, but these are mostly marginal or forested, and destruction of such ecosystems - even for agriculture - would cause more problems than it would provide solutions.
The only way forward is therefore to increase the yield of existing farms - to intensify agricultural production. Intensification requires use of modern varieties responsive to fertilizer treatment and the timely application of more nutrients to the fields. These can either come from 'external' inputs, such as mineral fertilizers, or from locally available soil amendments including organic matter.
The approach to food self-sufficiency is neither an easy nor a cheap undertaking. It is costly by any standard. It success justifies the cost. Productivity growth as a prerequisite to the attainment of food self-sufficiency must be executed in partnership with resources-poor smallholder producers.
These are the authentic private sector, who constitute the overwhelming of our people and their primary problems - poverty itself, low production, unequal access to the basic necessities of life and to the basic opportunities for self-advancement and development - must be recognized as having primary claims on government policies, programmes and resources. Within this context, comprehensive package of services must be made available to the farming community such as a comprehensive supervised input supply system, credit, farm advisory service system, irrigation, rural electrification, small- and medium-scale agro-industries and other supplementary employment opportunities on a scale never before envisioned or carried out. Unless these fundamental structural support changes are in place, neither NEPAD's 6% growth in agricultural productivity nor the World Bank's MDG goals will be achieved. Indeed, we may retreat away from all these targets.
We should design these productivity growth support incentive strategies to be a comprehensive framework, because our national social situation called for it, and to be developmental because our agricultural situation required it.
An upward movement
Farmers may improve the use and recycling of nutrients by applying innovative soil and water conservative methods. However, in order to raise agricultural productivity substantially these methods must be combined with the application of both organic and mineral fertilizers. Because organic sources of soil improvement have low nutrient content and are not abundant, relying on these sources alone is not feasible.
Similarly, using inorganic fertilizers alone may lead to short-term gains but stores up problems in the long-ter, such as soil acidification and loss of soil texture, both of which lead to yield decline. The best strategy is therefore to combine inorganic and organic soil amendments; the mineral fertilizer provides most of the nutrients while the organic fertilizer increases soil organic matter, structure and buffering capacity. This is defined as:
Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM)
The rationale for intensification based on ISFM is simple. There are synergies from using both inorganic and organic fertilizers that not only boost nutrient levels but also improve the efficiency of nutrient and water use.
Increasing production by providing alternative and more3 intensive technologies is only one rung on the ladder to productivity take-off; the other conditions must also be met if intensificatioin is to become economically sustainable and if food is to get where it is needed. Farmers must be able to access high-quality inputs at the right time and at reasonable cost. Moreover they need to produce surplus and be able to sell these at a fair price.
Linking farmers to input-supply and product-value chains is a huge challenge. Sustainable agricultural intensification needs a carefully assembled strategy that links the highly diverse farming systems of small holder farmers to specialized supply chains, that strengthens the competencies of the various actors involved, and that also addresses the fundamental causes of production as well as market failures.
These strategy has been outlined in various programme/project proposals based fertilizer use-rate and use-efficiency, community asset and wealth creation, the formation of agribusiness clusters which should make a major contribution to district/regional goals. Agribusiness clusters, within the concept of a targets-based productivity growth, should consist of progressive performers who would be eligible for additional funding to enable them participate more fully in the net working process.
Conclusion: Enabling conditions for productivity growth
Much of the investment for the sustainable promotion of the targets-based production intensification prerequisites are intended to respond to the productivity situation facing our resource-poor smallholder farmers. Yet we also need to address many other production problems if we are to permanently address the declining trends of the food production sub-sector.
There should be no illusion or quick fixes or miracle paths towards national self-reliance in food and agriculture. Achievement of a productive and sustainable sector will require us to address a complex set of challenges, including the following:
Furthermore, we will also need to improve the policy as well as the framework for productivity growth to make them more supportive of local community participation in rural areas. We will need to improve governance, in terms of giving voice to both small and large-scale players in the farming community.
If these constraints are eased through a combination of actions, a virtuous cycle can be started of reduced hunger, increased productivity, increased incomes and sustainable poverty reduction. All the above reqquire commitment of a high order. Regrettably, the past decades have revealed that little attention has been paid to agricuclture and rural development.
The Need For Planning
The objective of economic policy, therefore, from the long-term point of view and in terms of the overriding objective of economic development, is to channel the production surplus to agro-industry for value adding. Overtime, this leads to industrialization proper which absorbs both the production and labour surplus.
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