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:

Sustainable smallholder agriculture – and heads of state – in the spotlight at IFAD’s Governing Council

The lights in the large tent outside IFAD headquarters in Rome were blazing hot this morning. Beneath them, representatives of IFAD’s member states and staff, along with observers from grassroots farmers’ organizations and the media, gathered for the start of the agency’s 35th Governing Council.

The GC is the body that funds IFAD’s investments in smallholder agriculture around the world. Maybe it was just the lights, but something about the buzz in the room told me that the 2012 session would involve more than business as usual.

For one thing, there was a sense of anticipation about statements by two heads of state, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who were about to address the GC. For another, the two-day session comes at a critical moment, as world leaders prepare for the upcoming Rio+20 climate conference, where issues of sustainable agriculture will be front and centre. Meanwhile, the international community, very much including Italy, continues to cope with challenges posed by the global financial crisis.

Beyond all that, the theme of the GC – “Feeding the world, protecting the planet” – conveyed an urgency that raised the temperature in the tent even higher.

Nwanze: “An enabling environment”
When the lights finally dimmed, IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze’s opening statement set the stage for a potentially transformational session.

Nwanze thanked member states for increasing support for IFAD despite their own fiscal constraints. He pointed out, as well, that the agency has expanded its reach. In 2010, 43 million people obtained services through IFAD-supported projects, Nwanze reported. By 2015, IFAD expects to reach 80 to 90 million rural men, women and children with opportunities to lift themselves out of extreme poverty and become food-secure.

“The time has come for smallholders to play their rightful role in contributing to economic growth and food security,” he said. “When these farmers are recognized as small entrepreneurs, when they have access to better resources and incentives, and when they have access to markets and an enabling environment, they can transform their communities, their own lives, and indeed the world.”

Nwanze underscored IFAD’s commitment to helping smallholders feed a growing global population even as they adapt to a changing climate. Initiatives such as its Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme, he said, “will make IFAD a leader in climate-smart funding for smallholders.”

Kagame: “Be bold”
When President Kagame took centre-stage, he noted a bitter irony: The world’s poorest and least food-secure households are themselves rural smallholders who can barely eke out a living through subsistence farming.

“It is therefore imperative,” said Kagame, “that affected countries, and the institutions that they partner with, be bold and try what has not been done before. We must learn from what has worked and adapt these models to suit smallholder farmers.”

In Rwanda’s agricultural sector, investments in sustainable smallholder farming have contributed to average annual growth of 8 per cent in the past few years. “This has directly resulted in over one million Rwandans moving above the poverty line,” said Kagame. “Our experience has also shown that yields can be even higher and more sustainable when environmental conservation is integrated with agricultural activity.”

Along with its development partners, including IFAD and the other Rome-based UN agencies, Rwanda is pursuing land intensification and resource conservation initiatives to further expand productivity. Because smallholder farmers produce most of the food, these efforts focus on helping them make the transition from subsistence to market-oriented production.

“Every farmer counts,” said Kagame. “None is too small to be ignored.”

Monti: “Equal access”
Prime Minister Monti briefly greeted staff members in the IFAD lobby before making his way (with a sizeable security detail) to the GC tent. When he took the podium, he said he was glad to come to IFAD “at a time in which food security is once again at the centre of the global agenda.”

Monti acknowledged that leaders of the industrialized world have recently invested much of their attention to addressing financial crises. “Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that we are confronted with a much wider and deeper crisis,” he said. “The rise in energy prices and the pressure on the global food system are a signal that we are putting unsustainable pressure on the world’s natural resources.”

Italy has promoted food security as a policy priority in various multilateral settings since commodity prices surged in 2007, Monti recalled. Even aside from humanitarian and development considerations, he argued, this is essential for political stability.

“A hungry world is an unjust world. It is also an unstable world,” he warned.

Monti also pointed to gender gaps that not only violate the rights of women smallholders but impede rural livelihoods overall. “Giving women equal access to agricultural resources and inputs is one of the most powerful ways of reducing poverty and hunger,” he said.

It was one of many compelling points made at the GC this morning, casting a bright light on critical issues that will be considered during the rest of this session – and beyond.

Farmers’ Forum opens: “The future is in our hands”

The fourth global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum kicked off today at IFAD headquarters in Rome with a grassroots focus on the challenges faced by smallholder farmers and fishers around the world. The two-day event is part of a continuing dialogue between rural producers’ organizations, IFAD and governments.

About 95 delegates from farmers’ and fishers’ networks, and an equal number of observers, are attending the Farmers’ Forum. Many have travelled thousands of miles to participate.

As a new member of IFAD’s staff, I’m experiencing the forum for the first time. Still, having previously spent more than a decade working with UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, I felt right at home at a Farmers’ Forum pre-meeting held here on Saturday. At that all-day special session, about 30 delegates from rural youth organizations put their heads together to develop an action plan on making agriculture a viable option for young people in developing nations.

It was a promising and forward-looking prelude to the rest of the forum, which is about making rural livelihoods generally more viable and environmentally sustainable – and reducing poverty in the bargain.

A matter of survival
Speakers at this morning’s packed opening session came from diverse backgrounds and regions. Yet their over-arching message to the leaders of governments and multilateral agencies was singular. To feed a growing global population while simultaneously adapting to climate change, they said, you have to consider – and act upon – the perspectives of small-scale food producers.

“It’s not a battle for fishers alone. It’s not just a battle for farmers,” said Ujjaini Halim of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers. Instead, the task at hand is a matter of basic survival, she said, adding: “The future is in our hands.”

Halim is one of the members of the Farmers’ Forum Steering Committee, all of whom represent networks of small producers. In their statements, many of the committee members credited IFAD with advancing the idea that smallholder farmers are central to food security and poverty reduction. Several noted, however, that the devil is in the details of translating that idea into concrete policies and programmes.

The road ahead
Djibo Bagna of the West African producers’ network ROPPA listed a series of specific policy questions that must be answered as a prerequisite for rural transformation. For example, how will smallholders gain access to credit and markets? And how can we empower rural women and youth, and build the capacities of producers’ organizations?

“The road ahead is still very long,” said Bagna.

Other speakers asserted that small-scale producers should be more directly involved in the design and implementation of rural development plans at all levels. For instance, the UN Year of Family Farming – scheduled for 2014 – will be meaningful only if it involves smallholders in policy advocacy, said Estrella Penunia Banzuela of the Asian Farmers’ Association.

In addition, Steering Committee members urged IFAD and its partners to support pro-smallholder policy initiatives. For his part, Herman Kumara Wijethunge, of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, called for concerted action on FAO’s recently drafted Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries.

Learning and collaboration
IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze also spoke at the opening session of the Farmers’ Forum, offering his own take on key issues of sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship.

President Nwanze had visited the youth session on Saturday, where I saw him in a public setting for the first time. I was struck by his warm connection with the participants. He referred to that session today, reaffirming his commitment to “strengthening IFAD’s support of young women and men so that they can choose and build their futures in rural areas.”

Citing the droughts in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, and other recent weather shocks, President Nwanze added that “farmers are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather and shifts in climate patterns.” In the run-up to the Rio+20 climate conference in June, he said, IFAD and its grassroots partners – including young people – “must strengthen our collaborations.”

Speaking of collaboration, President Nwanze explained that 90 per cent of IFAD’s projects have benefitted from the input of producers’ organizations since the last meeting of the Farmers’ Forum two years ago. “But we are well aware that there is still more to do in terms of inclusiveness and consistency in these partnerships,” he said.

The Farmers’ Forum is nothing if not inclusive. It seems an ideal opportunity to strengthen partnerships. For me, it’s also a unique chance to learn about the hands-on issues that make up IFAD’s everyday operations. I look forward to learning more.

Family farmers are key to ensuring peace, prosperity and progress

Invest ‘big farming’ gains in new opportunities for small-scale producers
By Kanayo F. Nwanze

Family farmers are the future. We need to invest in their well-being and prosperity in Argentina – and across the globe - if we are to ensure food security, peace and sustainable natural resource management over the next 50 years.

Argentina is making sound economic progress in the area of mechanized “Big Farm” agriculture, and has become a world leader in soy production. I applaud these efforts. Nevertheless, a country with an annual per capita income of around US$7500 still claims a national poverty rate of 12 per cent. In the Northeast the rate is even higher. More worrying to me are the reports that eight children died of malnutrition in the Province of Salta this February.

And rural poverty, inequality and food security are not just a problem facing Argentina or Latin America. Sustainable rural poverty reduction is a global issue, and needs to become a global priority.

The Rural Poverty Report 2011 issued by my organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), shows that around 70 per cent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people – that’s people living on less than US$1.25 a day – live in rural areas. The report also underlined the need to increase production, reduce risk and ensure sound natural resource management practices. In fact, global food production will have to increase 70 per cent by 2050 – with a double in output from the developing world – in order to feed the 9 billion people who will inhabit the earth by then.

So how can Argentina – and the rest of Latin America – increase production, all the while ensuring sustained rural poverty reduction, environmental protection and inclusion? The answer is quite simple. We need to invest in family farmers.

The scale and possibilities for these investments are massive. In the MERCOSUR – a common market that includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – there are around 4.9 million farms, covering some 120 million hectares. Of these, 83 per cent are family-operated, providing as much as 70 per cent of the food for the region.

The first step is to create pro-poor policies that empower smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs to take the reins of their own destinies, and make family farming a profitable and sustainable enterprise.

I am happy to say that Argentina is making good progress in fostering proactive dialogue with family farmers. And IFAD has played an active role as an honest broker between large institutions, government and family farmers by supporting policy dialogue platforms like the National Family Farming Forum and the MERCOSUR Regional Specialized Meeting on Family Farming (REAF MERCOSUR).

In last year’s REAF MERCOSUR in Brasilia, Argentina agreed to buy more produce from family farmers for use in public institutions. I’ve seen this policy at work in Brazil, where 30 per cent of the food used in schools comes from family farmers. It’s a policy that works. And I am hopeful that Argentina will make good on its pledge and move forward with this important public policy.

But sound policy alone is not the answer. You also need to invest in productive resources, youth and women, technology and training, and natural resource protection if you ever hope to create lasting poverty reduction in Argentina’s rural areas.

Here, too, Argentina is making slow upward progress. At the end of 2009, the responsibilities of implementation of all IFAD-funded projects in Argentina were transferred to the newly created Unit for Rural Change at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. This welcome reform has allowed the projects funded by IFAD in Argentina - the North Western Rural Development Project (PRODENOA), the Patagonia Rural Development Project (PRODERPA), and the Rural Areas Development Programme (PRODEAR) – to synchronize their projects on the national level all the while ensuring demand-driven decision making by local stakeholders.

In these projects, we are seeing sound evidence that farmers are learning new skills to protect our Mother Earth and build sustainable rural enterprises. For instance, in the North East new beekeeping associations are allowing area farmers to collectively bargain and earn more money. The bees also provide much needed services to pollinate local fields and protect the forests. In the end, with most of the world’s biodiversity housed in rural areas, these family farmers will be the protectors of our natural patrimony, and we need to invest in them today if we are to see a better world tomorrow.

Also worth noting is the key role women and youth are playing. In Argentina and the rest of the world, we’ve seen that an investment in these two key agents of change will be a driving force in poverty reduction.

Investing in Argentina’s rural youth is especially important. These will be the farmers that will feed the nation 25 years from now. And creating improved opportunities in the countryside – with better training and schools, and more resources to work in off-farm industries like agricultural processing and craftsmanship – will work to stem Argentina’s urban flight, in the end, reducing urban poverty as well.

But Argentina does not simply have a responsibility to invest in rural poverty reduction and family farmers within its borders. The nation has taken giant leaps in creating new techniques and technologies in for-export agricultural production, making it a world leader in soy and beef production. These new resources and technologies need to be shared with the rest of Latin America and the rest of the world. ‘Big farming’ has resuscitated the nation’s economy. It’s time to take those resources and re-invest them in the ‘small farmers’ that will keep us whole for centuries to come.

About the author

Dr. Kanayo F. Nwanze is the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to ending rural poverty. In early July, Dr. Nwanze, along with the Director of IFAD's Latin America and the Caribbean Division Josefina Stubbs, Argentina Country Program Manager Paolo Silveri, and the Director of the Office of the President Sirpa Jarvenpaa met with high-level government officials in Buenos Aires and visited the IFAD-funded PRODEAR project in Chaco and Misiones.

Hot Links
This article was originally published in Spanish in Argentina's La Nacion on 13 July. Check it out online.

Spanish speakers should also check out the Testimonio Directo, from small-scale tea producer Evo Albrecht.

Smart choices in Argentina

IFAD President Nwanze reflects on Argentina, MICs and the future of rural development
On his recent mission to Argentina we caught up with IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze for an impromptu interview on the role of IFAD in Middle-Income Countries like Argentina. Nwanze's reflections provide unique insight into the way IFAD does business in large emerging economies. It also pans out to provide us with new ideas on how IFAD should work over the next six years, where we should invest our funds to reduce rural poverty, and how smart investments can be leveraged to create peace, prosperity and long-term sustainability.

Tune in to Nwanze's press conference in Chaco, Argentina.

See photos from the mission.

Learn more about the mission to Argentina.

Snapshot Argentina

Travel with IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze to Argentina with this in-depth photo essay. Along the way, you'll learn how IFAD can work with Middle-Income Countries like Argentina to end rural poverty, how new processing facilities are improving incomes in Argentina's Chaco and Misiones Provinces, and how a simple tractor can make the world of difference.

Check out more photos from the President's visit.