Bill Gates centre-stage at IFAD: Imagining a different future for agriculture

For a billionaire and former entrepreneur, Bill Gates is pretty candid about the limits of capitalism.

His perspective comes across as entirely apolitical. It’s an objective fact, he suggests, that markets will always fall short on research and development benefiting the world’s poorest people, most of whom are subsistence farmers. Investors simply calculate that the returns on smallholder farming are too slow and the risks too high.

Instead of helping the poor, says the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, technological innovations in agriculture tend to enhance the lives and livelihoods of those who are already well off.

Earlier today, Gates shared this viewpoint – and many more – at IFAD headquarters in Rome. As a centre-stage guest at the agency’s Governing Council of UN member states, he made a brief speech and a took part in a Q&A exchange moderated by broadcast journalist Isha Sesay. Before an audience representing governments, development agencies and farmers’ organizations, he repeatedly stressed the urgency of bridging the investment gaps in sustainable small-scale agriculture.

“Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty,” said Gates. To measure their impact, he advocated a new system of public “scorecards.” As Gates sees it, such scorecards would make governments and their partners accountable for meeting productivity targets in the smallholder farming sector – and for directing agricultural resources to those who need them most.

“A different future”
Even before Gates arrived at IFAD, the 2012 session of the Governing Council had seen its share of luminaries. Yesterday’s session featured the President of Rwanda, the Prime Minister of Italy and the Vice President of Liberia. This morning, the Italian Minister for International Cooperation delivered a keynote address. Ministers of Agriculture from several countries have also participated.

Gates brought a different kind of energy to the proceedings. At 56, the Microsoft founder and global philanthropist retains some of the tousled quality of the teenage computer genius he once was. At IFAD, he seemed more comfortable speaking off the cuff about technology than reading from a prepared text. No one is likely to mistake him for a career politician.

Appearances aside, Gates was forceful and occasionally challenging in his comments. He praised the heads of the Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies as “an exciting new generation of leaders.” At the same time, he urged them to be more coordinated in revitalizing an “outdated and somewhat inefficient” world food system.

With increased international attention now focusing on agricultural issues, he said, “we have the opportunity and the obligation to imagine a different future.”

Adapting to climate change
Ideally, of course, that future will be a time when smallholder farmers are able to sustainably increase food production, lift their families out of poverty and preserve the land for generations yet to come. To get there, Gates said, they will need access to innovations such as drought- and flood-tolerant seeds, micro-irrigation systems, and vaccines for livestock.

He noted, too, that smallholders must share in “the digital revolution” in agriculture – from DNA sequencing of plant genomes to satellite imaging of crop yields, and even the use of video to broaden the scope of rural extension services.

“When you put the right tools in farmers’ hands, the results can be magical,” said Gates. In fact, small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa could nearly triple their crop yields in the next 20 years with the right interventions, according to Gates Foundation research.

During the Q&A session, Gates returned to this topic, adding that the basic strategies for the future of productive small-scale agriculture would be the same even if farmers didn’t have the added burden of adapting to climate variability. “Climate change increases the urgency,” he said. “But the right things to do for agriculture are constant.”

Linchpin of development

Just before taking centre-stage at the Governing Council, Gates had joined IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze to sign a statement of intent for an expanded partnership between the Gates Foundation and IFAD.

The two organizations are already co-financing more than $180 million in agricultural development projects. Today’s statement will accelerate their joint efforts to improve rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The statement reflects a growing realization that food security is a linchpin of sustainable development and poverty reduction. As Gates said at IFAD, “More productive small farmers are the key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty. If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture.”

It’s a timely message for 500 million smallholder farmers who produce 80 per cent of the food in the developing world. The future they imagine – a future of health, nutrition, education and dignity for their families – will only come about through concerted action on the issues raised so provocatively by Bill Gates in Rome.

Watch the recorded webcast here:

Diaspora Investment in Agriculture - GC PTA side event, 22 February

The immense development potential of diaspora catalysed an animated discussion at the PTA GC side event on 22 February, led by the Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR). Despite the late hour, delegates gathered numerous to learn how two of the most proactive FFR partners – the Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiatives and the Himilo Relief and Development Association (HIRDA) – turned a small group of strong-willed and talented returnees into an investment cooperative.

Remittances reach 10 per cent of the developing world’s population. Approximately 40 countries receive 10 per cent or more of their GDP from remittances. In some countries, such as Tajikistan, remittances account for 30 per cent of GDP, while this number is higher still in Haiti and Somalia, where estimates range from 30 to 50 per cent. Nearly half of these vital flows reach rural areas, where they help purchasing food, building shelters, and funding children education. Yet, just alike each of us, migrants and their families do save up for educating their children or to be able to face unexpected health issues, or simply for rainy days.

“Migrants behave just the same as we do” says Mai Anonuevo, the manager of an FFR-financed project in the Philippines. “They, too, look for saving and investment opportunities, and of course they seek to reduce risk as much as possible”. Most importantly, “Migrants’ investment decisions are always based on family or community ties rather than pure profit seeking. This is why no one is more keen on investing in the home countries than the diaspora actors” adds Fatumo Farah, manager of the FFR-financed project in Somalia. It is indeed remarkable to learn, through Fatumo’s passionate words, how, in a few years, a returnee community in the central region of Somalia managed to take control of a water extraction system established through external donors’ contribution. Returnees decided to invest their own savings in maintenance and water distribution. Now, the locally-managed structure is self-sufficient and fully functioning through the payment of an equitable fare by users covering maintenance costs.

Why do migrants choose investing in agriculture? Just as HIRDA, Atikha, and many of the FFR partners in the field have explained, agriculture offers a relatively safe and stable financial return and the prospect of job creation in the home country. Not to mention the relevance of the “nostalgic goods” market, in which migrants abroad are willing to pay a premium price just to get hold of their home specialties, be it camel milk for the Somali community in the Netherlands or nopal cactus – derived products for the Mexican community in the USA.

How does IFAD, through the FFR, engage migrants into investing in agriculture in their home country? Again, the FFR experience in the Philippines has demonstrated the importance of working together with migrant workers towards goal setting, budgeting and saving, and providing them with the access to the right and equitable instruments to do so. On the other hand, it has brought to light the key role played by local cooperatives as instruments to pool savings and reduce investment risk, through accurate mapping of existing investment opportunities. Working with local governments has also been key to help create an enabling environment for investment and economic development, as well as mobilise public resources to match migrant capital.

So what are the next steps? The FFR-led Diaspora Investment in Agriculture Initiative (DIA) seeks to scale up successful migrant investment examples and to turn them into a profitable, pro-poor mechanism for agricultural development. Through DIA, country-specific value chain of selected agricultural commodities will be mapped, along with investment opportunities and capacity building needs, all in close cooperation with local partners from the private, public, and civil society sectors. Through the launch of a competitive call for proposals, a number of successful initiatives will be identified, that address key priorities emerging from the country analysis. Selected proposals will have to demonstrate how to engage closely with local communities and mobilise matching financial resources to share risk.

As a matter of fact, while migrants become more conscious about their goals and financial options, diaspora investment in agriculture is already happening, and growing fast. “We used to migrate to survive. Now, we migrate smarter. We have one objective – save and return better” told once one of the FFR grant beneficiaries, an Albanian would-be entrepreneur. The next big challenge will thus be on how to capitalise on a growing phenomenon, while building overseas bridges between diasporas abroad and their home communities.

A delicate balance

Community and Participatory Management of Natural Resources: Experiences from Mesoamerica’s Indigenous Peoples and Forest Communities

By Jeff Brez and Greg Benchwick
In today’s side event Community and Participatory Management of Natural Resources: Experiences from Mesoamerica’s Indigenous Peoples and Forest Communities, IFAD’s Latin America and the Caribbean Division hosted a robust discussion on how international organizations, indigenous peoples, governments and other key stakeholders can come together to create sustainable livelihood solutions from the world’s forests. It’s a matter of balancing development with poverty reduction - and sustainable forestry management with economic development - to create business (and development) models that work for all involved.

What was very clear in the discussion was the strong desire of the communities to identify more sustainable livelihood solutions within the forests, both from timber and non-timber products. These types of mechanisms would allow them to continue their way of life.

There was also a lot of excitement regarding the variety of ways that some communities are managing to earn sustainable incomes - such as through the sale of resin or by tapping the still-unknown potential of the forest to provide other sources of income, for example through medicinal plants or protection of biodiversity that may have other medical applications. Strengthening of value chains was a recurring theme, and it was felt that building mutually beneficial relationships with both industry and government is still an uphill battle, although ground is being gained.

Another hot topic was carbon: Who owns it? Because of land tenure issues in many countries, ownership of the land was unclear and by corollary rights to carbon income made accessing REDD+ mechanisms and carbon markets messy business. Jesus Quintana, Regional Climate and Environment Specialist for the LAC region with IFAD, pointed out that this is of crucial importance not only for reasons of justice, but also for the practical reason that clear ownership or rights is the foundation for a sound enabling environment for investment.

A final point of difficulty for communities is the short project and contract terms for forest management. The representatives pointed out that five years is too short a time period to show proven performance in sustainably managing a forest. What they see as more reasonable are 40-year renewable contracts that are automatically renewable if the management is indeed sustainable and effective. That would give communities certainty in planning their economic and ecological future, and also a broader base from which to gain social, environmental and cultural benefits.

Video

In this insightful video produced for an event on Community and Participatory Management of Natural Resources: Experiences from Mesoamerica’s Indigenous Peoples and Forest Communities, at the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) annual Governing Council, indigenous community leaders and forestry experts examine the challenges and opportunities of sustainable forestry. Indigenous communities are the protectors of the world’s biodiversity. Only by providing them with the means, tools and mechanisms to protect the world’s forests can we hope to ensure a sustainable future for our little green planet. In Spanish with English subtitles. 

 
Hot links
Tackling sustainable rural development and climate change in Mexico
Mexico Going Green - Emerging trends in REDD+ and other sustainable practices 
IFAD signs US$5 million loan for ‘Community Forestry Development’ in Southern Mexico
English | Spanish

www.forestsclimatechange.org/index.html

www.reddmexico.org/conafor

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