Do we have to think beyond the farms?
Published on by Donna Mahanti, corporate social responsibility head
Just improving farm yield is not enough to lift families and communities out of poverty - we also need to change the systems in which smallholders operate. For instance say the farmers should have direct access to sale the products in market. Whats other members take on this? And how can we do that?
3 Answers
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We need community supported agriculture (CSA). As long as consumers do not demand higher food quality, we will keep finding horse meat in French lasagnas and pork meat in Swiss kebabs, as medias recently found out.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4cdFXKDAaQw
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Long term storage, be it through a crop banking system or a farm cooperative model would hold promise. Ghana's MiDA/USAID storage and drying centers seem to working fairly well. A commercial, core farm with storage capacity could act as a hub-and-spoke center, too, and could also help in strategic marketing. I think the problems lie in a couple areas: "forced" marketing at harvest time (during the seasonally low price) and improper handling and storage (post harvest loss). Smallhold farmers either need help with or access to marketing options. Actually, a simple cell phone app would work in many places.