- Jordbruk avgjørende for å redusere fattigdom
GLOBAL KOMMENTAR. Investeringer i jordbruk er nøkkelen til å oppnå FNs tusenårsmål. Likevel har satsingen på jordbrukssektoren sunket fra 18 prosent av all bistand i 1979 til 2,7 prosent i 2006, skriver Farhana Haque-Rahman.
Innen 2015 har FN satt som mål at fattigdommen i verden skal halveres. Verdensbanken ser landbruk som et av de viktigste satsingsområdene for at dette målet skal nås og har viet sin årlige World Development Report for 2008 til landbruk for utvikling.
Forskere, finansinstitusjoner og bistandsorganisasjoner har mottatt rapporten med stor interesse. 28. og 29. februar arrangerer Norad et seminar der innlederne vurderer hvilke muligheter det afrikanske landbruket har og hvordan nordisk og internasjonal utviklingshjelp bør utformes i årene som kommer.
I den anledning bringer Bistandsaktuelt en artikkel skrevet av informasjonssjefen i International Fund for Agricultural Development:
Time for action
Thirty years ago, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was created to help poor farmers increase their productivity, incomes and food security. This was in the mid-1970s - a time of rapidly rising food and energy prices, when fears of food shortages were combined with a concern that, in a world of plenty, millions were still going hungry.
Thirty years later, those who predicted that food production could not keep pace with a growing population have been proved wrong. In 2008 the world is feeding almost twice as many people from virtually the same amount of land.
Still, almost one billion people live in conditions of extreme poverty, where hunger persists, inequality is rising, and where more than two billion people live on less than US$2 per day. Despite urbanization, the majority of the world's poorest people live in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. The vast majority of poor rural people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
If we are to make faster progress, especially in those regions where we are not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we must refocus on agriculture, and in particular smallholder agriculture.
Agriculture's special power to overcome rural poverty
IFAD agrees with the 2008 World Development Report's assessment of the "special power" of agriculture to overcome rural poverty. According to the report, GDP growth generated by agriculture is up to four times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors.
"IFAD has for many years been calling for higher investment in agriculture," says IFAD President Lennart Båge. "The World Development Report has confirmed this and puts agriculture back where it belongs - right at the centre of the fight against poverty."
Investment in agriculture has been shown again and again to have a powerful impact on poverty reduction. Growth in agriculture has driven wider economic growth throughout history - from 18th century England, to 19th century Japan to 20th century India.
Yet government spending on agriculture in most poor countries was in sharp decline until recent years. And development aid for agriculture has fallen from 18 per cent of all aid in 1979 to 3.5 per cent in 2004, and to 2.9 per cent in 2006.
New challenges require additional investments
Agricultural development is not only essential for meetings the MDGs, it has an important role to play in tackling climate change.
Climate change is at the centre of a web of new challenges confronting farmers. A disastrous combination of rising temperatures, climate variability, uncertain growing seasons, decreased water availability, new pests and diseases, and decreasing biodiversity has the potential to reverse recent progress in reducing poverty in many parts of the world. Africa is projected to fare worst, with at least 75 million people there at risk of increased water stress.
But it will not be just an African problem. All regions will be affected. Hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers, herders and other poor rural groups live in marginal areas at serious risk from degradation and desertification. We can expect future climate change to put close to 50 million extra people at risk of hunger by 2020. Those least responsible for the problem will be those first and hardest hit.
Not only must we assist poor rural people as they adapt to climate change, we must also enable them to part of mitigation efforts. Poor rural people can be effective custodians of the natural resource base. But they must have access to the technology and financial resources they need to be part of the solution.
Closely linked with climate change are two other trends of growing importance - food prices and biofuels. Food prices have risen dramatically in recent years as a growing population is demanding more food and a more varied diet. Over the past three years, the price of wheat and rice has doubled while the price of corn is up by 50 per cent.
Higher food prices and the potential of bio-fuels represent opportunities as well as challenges. Rising food prices could make smallholder agriculture more productive and economically viable, even as they pose risks to those who are net buyers of food. Bio-fuels, especially second generation bio-fuels that can be grown on marginal lands, could offer smallholder farmers significant new income sources. These two trends are making "the rural space" more attractive for investments.
The World Development Report provides a compelling case for higher investment in agriculture. It is now up to the international community and national governments to respond to the call by the World Bank and IFAD to significantly increase the share of development assistance and public investment in the sector.
By Farhana Haque-Rahman
Chief, Media Relations, Special Events and Programmes
International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD
IFAD was created 30 years ago to tackle rural poverty, a key consequence of the droughts and famines of the early 1970s. Since 1978, IFAD has invested more than US$10 billion in low-interest loans and grants that have helped more than 300 million very poor rural women and men increase their incomes and provide for their families. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is a global partnership of OECD, OPEC and other developing countries. Today, IFAD supports more than 200 programmes and projects in 84 developing countries.