Empowering smallholder farmers for a sustainable future: what are the five steps? - gallery

Powering Up Small Holders to Make Food Fair 30 million smallholders produce most of the world’s coffee and cocoa, and tens of millions of others play important roles in the production of tea, bananas and sugar. Many of these smallholders live in poverty on less than $2 a day. Fairtrade’s experience over the last 20 years can offer valuable lessons on how small farmers need to be supported. We have drawn up a five point agenda for rebalancing the power in the global food system in favour of smallholder farmers. We call on governments, donors and the private sector to make sure that new initiatives and investments in agriculture adopt these five fundamentals. The Kuapa Kokoo cocoa co-operative in Ghana has 63,000 members who are smallholder growers in 1,400 village societies. It is the only farmer-owned organisation among the private companies in Ghana granted licences to trade cocoa - most farmers have to sell their crop individually to licensed buying companies Photograph: Simon Rawles

Farmers first: Increase farmers’ voice, influence and organisation Underlying smallholder farmers’ lack of access to inputs, land and services is their lack of power and voice. Fairtrade’s experience shows that where smallholder farmers are organised, have control over their resources and visibility and influence over decisions that affect them, results are impressive. Producer organisations like co-operatives and farmers associations offer smallholder farmers support to secure land rights, access better market opportunities, or secure group discounts on inputs such as fuel, seed and machinery. The coffee farms of Gumutindo members are located in the Mbale district of eastern Uganda. Gumutindo, which means “excellent quality” in the local Lugisu language, began in 1998 as a joint project between Bugisu Co-operative Union (BCU), a union of village co-operative societies, and Twin Trading, a UK alternative trading organisation that sources Fairtrade coffee. Photograph: Simon Rawles

Fair share of value: ensure farmers receive fair prices The global market in most commodities is highly concentrated, with a small number of global corporations dominating the trade and securing most of the value from international supply chains. Meanwhile smallholders are marginalised and receive low returns for their produce. Tools like the Fairtrade minimum price, premium and access to pre-financing, enable farmer organisations to improve their negotiating power and the potential share of value they receive. Equally, Fairtrade focuses on building direct partnerships between farmer organisations and large businesses and equipping farmers with information and training to secure better terms of trade. Of the 4,000 remaining banana growers in the Windward Islands approximately 3,400 are members of the 48 Fairtrade groups across Dominica, St Lucia and St Vincent. Fairtrade has helped banana farmers strengthen their organisations and regain confidence in the industry.
Photograph: Simon Rawles

Fair access to finance: Ensure access to timely and affordable credit Many smallholders need small loans to make investments in their farming, to buy inputs or technologies or produce new varieties of crops, but credit is rarely available or affordable. Fairtrade understands the importance of access to affordable credit for farmers. We address this by providing access to pre-financing of up to 60%. Research also shows that Fairtrade producer organisations are seen as more credit-worthy borrowers by financial institutions and thereby enjoy greater access to credit than their non-certified counterparts. Innovations in lending are urgently needed to reduce costs and encourage more financial institutions to extend their services to more smallholders. Businesses need to look closely at their own practices and the specific needs of the smallholders in their supply chains, ensuring that any credit they offer is appropriate in terms of scale, timeliness and means of access.
Photograph: Monika Berresheim

Future-proofed farming: Prioritise sustainable agriculture and climate resilience Sustainable agriculture offers the prospect of both improving farm productivity and helping smallholders adapt to climate change. Dao Tich thi Tuyen is a member of the Hop Tac coffee co-operative in Vietnam. He has been working in the coffee fields as an employee since 1988 and then bought the right to use one hectare of land to grow his own coffee in 1995. Since joining, Dao now uses organic fertiliser, and no longer uses pesticides. The co-op has used its Fairtrade Premuim to provide both fertiliser and equipment like tractors and grass cutters to their members. The result has been improved yields and better quality coffee beans. Importantly, belonging to the co-op means Dao has access to training in more sustainable farming practices.
Photograph: Linus Hallgren

Focus in government funding: Increase and target national and donor government spending on agriculture. The amount and focus of national and donor government funding must improve. Developing countries in which agriculture contributes a large proportion of national income generally need to spend much more on support to farming. They currently allocate an average of just 5 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture. Recent analysis by the FAO calculates that an additional $42.7 billion per year globally needs to be needs to be spent on agriculture up to 2025 in order to end hunger.
Photograph: Simon Rawles