The Daily Observer (Banjul)
Suruwa B. Wawa Jaiteh
1 August 2008
opinion
One of the steps that need to be taken to equip the national farm advisory technicians for the increased demand of their job for generating productivity growth, is a programme that I have outlined as "changing the change agent."
This is based on the simple assumption that "one cannot teach what one does not know." Besides competence in subject matter and manipulative skills, a by-product of this approach is actually a new work ethic essential to the farmer's as well as the nation's awakened enthusiasm. S. B. Wawa Jaiteh, '06.
Objectives of Food Self-Sufficiency Policy
Food self-sufficiency policy can only be formulated on the basis of clearly defined development goals and objectives and in terms of decisions concerning the type and volume of food crops that need to be produced and the resources to be mobilized and deployed. In this context, the production of cereals (digitaria (findo), maize, rice, sorghum) the main constituents of our daily diet plus the sweet potato such as the Centennial, Julian, and Javel varieties which are rich sources of vitamin A, could be considered the package of crops for the attainment of food self-sufficiency.
This production objective can only be facilitated by the provision of institutional support services, consistently applied in all fronts. Self-sufficiency in whatever undertaking and/or form is not a cheap process but, in the final analysis, the end justifies the means.
The food self-sufficiency policy of the country should be guided by a common goal, namely, the desire to exercise greater control over our social, economic and agro-rural development through the promotion of self-reliance, a precondition for meeting the basic material needs of the resource poor smallholder farmer and under-privileged masses.
Policies should address the problem of making available standard recommended varieties and inputs on the one hand and of stimulating the adoption of standard on-farm practices on the other. This implies the effective integration of two main streams: the "input stream", with its emphasis on the selection and acquisition of the required inputs and their subsequent use; and the "capacity stream", with its emphasis on the development and promotion of learning and creating capacities.
The output of this interaction is productivity growth which consistently generates surplus production, the basis for poverty reduction as well as the creation of independent and self sustaining communities.
Our emphasis in the past, though challenging and partly productive has, however, not been adequately programmed, because the development and use of recommended varieties, inputs use-rate and use-efficiency, prerequisites to productivity growth and poverty reduction, received only scant attention. The determining objective, therefore, of any food self-sufficiency policy, is to harmonize inputs-use rates, learning and creating capacities.
Attempts at harmonizing these activities need to recognize, however, that the three streams are not independent or mutually exclusive, but rather interactive at different levels. It also be possible to tackle the problems associated with each stream within different time frames. The development of the capacity to control input use-rate and use-efficiency, learning and creating capacities should be accorded determining importance in a targets-based productivity approach.
Beneficiary capacity building should, in this regard, take two cropping seasons under irrigated conditions and two crop years under rainfed conditions. With appropriate planning, these period should be enough to create and stabilize the required productive capacities. Without such capacities, the self-sufficiency policy and the attendant production process aimed at fostering skills development and stabilizing domestic production anchored on the capacity to innovate are likely to be continuously undermined.
This unfortunate scenario is the unintended situation in the food and agriculture sector of sub-Saharan African countries and, hence, their inability for quick response to the current food crisis.
A framework for national action
A framework for national action in the approach to food self-sufficiency consists of four interrelated steps:
(a) a broad consensus on the desired mix of production inputs and the pattern of national production capabilities;
An assessment of the present production capabilities and identification of gaps and shortcomings;
(c) Strategy formulation in terms of policies, programmes and institutions, together with the financial and manpower resources needed for implementation;
A re-assessment of the coherence of ends and means as well as arrangements for coordination and monitoring.
The purpose of the framework is not to present a step-by-step approach to the formulation of a policy specific for food self-sufficiency but to list what might be termed indicative issues. Rather, the purpose is to foster the awareness that food self-sufficiency, like in other self-sufficiency efforts, is a process and that there is continuous need for clarity in the relationship between the end and the means.
The framework is based upon the three essential pillars of policies, programmes and institutions. Policies by themselves can only act like levers or valves that can be used to channel or to cut off the flow of national resources or energies. The specific orientation of resources and energies is conditioned by programmes of action. Institutions are the instruments that formulate and implement policies and programmes. Excessive reliance on any one of these three pillars and/or systematic weakness of any of the three should be avoided.
Comparison of Self-Sufficiency Development Options
One of the purposes of multiple objective planning and evaluation in agro-rural development is to provide a systematic framework with which to compare various intervention options or scenarios, with respect to their effect on the goals that society seeks to achieve through productivity growth. The purpose is not to recommend, suggest or imply which scenario or option should or should not be implemented. Rather, the purpose is to illustrate the application of the comparative analysis procedure in multiple objective evaluation for the benefit of the producers and society.
The technical potential for food self-sufficiency can only be translated into practical realization through substantial investment and development, so that the major constraints that apply to both rainfed and irrigated agriculture will need to be considerably reduced. The required measures are the consistent provision of institutional support services, scheduled and supervised on-farm activities, use of recommended drought/salt tolerant high yielding short/medium duration varieties, high input high output (HIHO) production system and religiously adhering to an agreed upon production calendar and on-farm practices that should be detailed in a comprehensive memorandum of understanding (MOU).
From a number of production system possibilities, either singly or in combination, three possible scenarios are initially considered, and considerable analysis was done on them. All of the three scenarios have hidden potentials to contribute to the country's food self-sufficiency drive, over a target-time frame, using a targets-based production approach.
The scenarios represent similar possibilities for the development of increased food production and productivity, and yet provide a focus for comparing the net benefits of each. These serve to highlight the kinds of issues which planners, decision- and policy-makers must grapple with as a basis for making conclusions. The scenarios are outlined below.
Scenario 1 (Rainfed Production System)
While there are substantial resources of rainfed land (upland, inland swamps, saline mangrove swamps and fresh water swamps), the country cannot generate food self-sufficiency from rainfed production system alone at the current low input low output (LILO) production technology. This ecology is environmentally marginal, with an average reference growing season of less than 120 days and is, essentially, unreliable. The assumption under this scenario is that, if we can consistently adopt medium to high input production technology while cultivating 35% of the country's 558,000 ha. arable land and producing a targets-based average yield of 2 tons/ha. of upland cereals including rice (plus an average yield of 10 tons/ha. of rice-based vegetable production system), to be supported by a consistently high input exploitation of the existing irrigation perimeters, may lead to a lessening of the year-year production variations and risks and, thus, close the food requirement gap.
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