Farmers, key to a secure food future?
Tropical regions could enjoy secure food supplies over the next fifty years if local smallholder farmers are encouraged to help themselves, says a university of East Anglia development expert writing in this week’s journal Science. Professor Michael Stocking acknowledges that soil degradation is rife in some areas and that around a billion people currently lack food security, but he questions the bleak picture of the future of tropical soils and food security often painted by environmentalists and campaigners.
“There are many environmental doomsday scenarios, but even climate change and soil erosion are two-edged swords which produce winners and losers,” said Professor Stocking, Dean of Development Studies at UEA and an expert on soil management. “While hilltop farmers in Sri Lanka, for example, may suffer as water and nutrients run off their land, farmers down in the valley below benefit greatly from enriched soils and so provide for local food needs.”
According to the professor, science does not always get it right and does not necessarily provide workable or acceptable solutions. Soils are dynamic and respond to demands placed on them. If simple provisions such as access to technology are made available, food production by smallholders can be transformed.
“Often local people have the solutions and the appropriate technologies – not necessarily the technologies we would use in the west. We need to understand what local farmers are doing and suggest that others try something similar,” said Professor Stocking.
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