Dennis Garrity:
Attacking the Tragedy of Hunger and Desperate Poverty Through Pro-Poor Agricultural Science

DENNIS GARRITY
International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), Kenya

The current tragedy of hunger and desperate poverty in the developing world is soluble. And by setting firm targets for the eventual elimination of these scourges, the world's attention is now focused on making concrete progress on these goals as never before. Progress has already been made. The percentage of the world population that is food insecure has fallen from 37% thirty years ago, to 18% today, even though the global population has nearly doubled during that period of time. But progress has also been very uneven. There were huge declines in food insecure populations in Asia, but the number of food-insecure people in Africa has more than doubled in the past thirty years.

Agricultural research has a crucial role to play in creating and sustaining the escape from food insecurity and poverty. It does this in several ways: By enabling poor farmers to increase their own-farm food production; by providing greater rural employment opportunities and growth in the rural nonfarm economy; by lowering food prices to poor consumers; and by empowering the poor through greater opportunities for collective action. Sustainable productivity increases in small-scale agriculture are critical to benefit rural people caught in vicious poverty traps. Agroecological approaches to better farming that rely on limited cash investments are necessary. These approaches focus on meeting the needs of small-scale farms in the less-favored areas. They link modern science with indigenous knowledge and practices. They maximize the efficiency of local materials. And they thrive on the strong participation of farmers in identifying problems and designing solutions appropriate to their needs and circumstances. Agroecological approaches give poor people more power and influence over the research system, and thus push pro-poor agricultural research ever closer to the customers.

The generation of improved fallow systems, and other tree-based soil fertility technologies, for disadvantaged farmers in southern and eastern Africa, has exemplified these principles. These systems have enabled farm families to double or triple their food crop yields, and to sustain those yields better during frequently-occurring droughts. In addition, diversified tree cultivation systems have been notable drivers of economic development in many countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. Market-driven production of new or under-recognized tree products are a very significant opportunity to increase both assets and income on the land throughout the tropics. One example is smallholder timber production as a farm enterprise: It is increasingly dominating wood production in many countries. The notion that small farmers are not, or cannot be, competitive producers of a wide range of farm products has been soundly proven to be erroneous. By debunking this myth, the way is open for much greater needed investments in pro-poor agricultural science to support the smallholder sectors of developing countries, and to thereby create rural prosperity and a sound foundation for economic development.

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Contact Address: Dennis Garrity, International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), P.O. Box 30677, Nairobi, Kenya, e-mail: d.garritycgiar.org