Opinion: Paving the Way to Food Security: Access to Agricultural Technology
By Sheryl Cowan and Jean Francois Guay
More than 820 million people — about 10.8 percent of the world’s population — lack sufficient access to affordable, high-quality food.
At the same time, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia and other regions with food-insecure populations lack access to the inputs and services, high-quality land, and financial services necessary for them to increase agricultural production — and satisfy the world’s growing appetite for more and better food.
This increasing imbalance in supply and demand makes it essential for smallholders to adopt agricultural technologies that will enable them to farm sustainably, increase yields, produce higher-quality output, and improve economic outcomes. And one of the most efficient ways to accomplish this is to leverage the power of the private sector.
The Pakistan Agricultural Technology Transfer Activity (PATTA) serves as a prime example of this approach. The four-year, $8.2 million project — funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), an international agricultural development organization — facilitates local private-sector investment and training in order to introduce smallholders to new agricultural technologies, educate them on new farming techniques, and help them adapt their social behaviors to better address real needs.
PATTA enlists and facilitates the collaboration of businesses in the agricultural technology sector, and stimulates ongoing private-sector investment to commercialize agricultural technologies that meet smallholders’ needs. The project works to improve access to — and scale up the adoption of — technological advances such as improved seeds, fertilizers and other inputs; better plant varieties and animal breeds; precision agriculture and integrated soil fertility management, among other things. As farmers implement these new approaches, they are better able to increase their incomes and create jobs, as well as enhance the food security, economic growth and stability of their communities.
Education and training are essential to the effort. In the Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for example, PATTA facilitated a series of demonstrations with partner companies to promote improved integrated pest management solutions to control fruit flies in the region’s fruit orchards. The Swat District is called the fruit valley and produce high quality peaches, apples, apricot, persimmons, prunes and nectarines. Post-harvest losses represent about 30 percent to 40 percent of the production for the Swat farmers.
STATIC™ Spinosad ME insecticidal bait is an “attract-and-kill” insecticide bait that is specific to male fruit flies which respond to the powerful chemical attractant. It costs twice the usual cost of the chemical pesticides, but do not require the 3–4 applications during ripening period of fruits. Overall, the cost per hectare is reduced, the need of labor minimized, the pest better controlled, and the impact is significant, achieving an average 20 percent to 25 percent reduction in post-harvest losses.
Another demonstration in Gilgit-Baltistan attracted more than 1,000 farmers and partner agencies and enabled seven featured agri-tech companies to introduce smallholders to new, income-producing technologies — and make on-the-spot sales. The event also highlighted PATTA’s new rental model for agricultural technologies and equipment, and included a session for women smallholders designed to increase their awareness of agriculture-related entrepreneurial opportunities and business models, and introduce them to agricultural technology rentals aimed at helping them bolster income and improve household food security.
Similarly, PATTA conducted demonstrations in the village of Rahimabad promoting the use of Emmerson Ryegrass seed, which produces a cost-efficient and nutritious animal fodder. Of the 1,400 farmers who attended livestock technology demonstrations at the event, 1,100 purchased the seed from PATTA’s agri-tech private-sector partner over the next 3-month period. Farmers using the seed produced more, richer fodder, resulting in higher milk yields for their cows and greater income.
PATTA clearly demonstrates the important role that entrepreneurial, private-sector-driven initiatives can play in the effort to achieve global food security.
The project, which runs through April 2021, will leave in its wake new, strong and sustainable relationships that will better enable Pakistan’s smallholder farmers — and incentivize their agribusiness partners — to meet the challenges of a growing population and changing climate.
By replicating this approach in other food-insecure regions, farmers and businesses can work together to feed a hungry world.
The authors are Sheryl Cowan and Jean Francois Guay. Sheryl is Vice President of Programs at Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA). Jean Francois Guay is the Chief of Party of CNFA’s Pakistan Agricultural Technology Transfer Activity (PATTA) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
