Hi Grahame,
Bench-marking and associated policy changes to encourage commercialization in the agricultural sector has the possibility of leaving the poorest and most vulnerable behind.
Could you elaborate on the risk analysis undertaken as part of the planning for the project? And whether there the BBA has any mitigation strategies or policies that are going to be put in place to support these people?
This links to be point regarding risk.
We think it is useful to identify what policies are important while recognising the need to be flexible to local conditions. One of our concerns is that if for example the BBA ranks countries it will narrow the focus onto a set of areas that require a more nuanced approach. The BBA has indicators and deep dives and many of the issues most important to smallholders are in the deep dives - one of our questions is the relationship between the two.
Q4: Which countries are leading the way in promoting commercial smallholder agriculture? What can we learn from them?
And BBA having the Deep Dives is also a clear response to some of the problems of just the 'hard' indicators. These topic areas seem to have potential to make it more rounded and useful although there is a risk that the attention of policy makers will be on the few indicators and not the more comprehensive information provided by Deep Dives. So it seems that its important to get those indicator areas to cover aspects that are critical for smallholders
The issue of bench marking vs ranking is key. In the Doing Business Project the portrayal of the rankings as a technical and statistical exercise promotes their judgement as an “objective truth” rather than as the start of a debate. Rankings create strong norms of the “right” things to do. The fact of being scored against other countries creates strong pressure on governments to do what is advised in the rankings. This is especially true in poor client countries, where the intellectual and financial weight of the World Bank is most keenly felt. Ranking should be avoided (as the DB review highlighted) and if we are to benchmark countries it is essential that we get the 'right' policy mix which focuses on SHF and which has a direct, measurable poverty impact. Otherwise resources and policies can be skewed away from the most vulnerable.
Hi panel,
David Bright from Oxfam here. We have produced the Tipping the balance report with IIED recently, having researched policy around agricultural investment and market governance in 4 countries recently, link below:
One of our 4 key findings was the need to innovate and align social policy, to support women smallholders benefit from agricultural market development. Intrigued what policy others think are key to support women in agriculture?
Thanks Zahid for this. I am of the opinion that benchmarking best practice could help in promoting positive policy change. But three major risks are inherent in this. First is the issue of difficulty in contextualizing such practices and an attempt to introduce change as prescription. On the other hand is the methodology and approach in doing this which must be right; otherwise it would result in more complex and ambiguous policy position. The third risk exists in the normal resistance to change which must be factored-in and resourced right from the planning stage. Thanks for the opportunity for me to make my own contribution.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for your comment. We had a discussion with Kate Geary yesterday on these precise topics.
The World Bank is a supporter of the Voluntary guidelines. Even our President has made comments to that effect. We are at the moment preparing a program of support on the ground and promotion of the VGs - which will be funded by the Japanese. In addition we have an LGAF program which is going into great detail around land and developing its own indicators. This is initially programmed to cover 33 countries, but almost certainly be expanded to included a greater range of countries.
The BBA program has used the VGs as one of the core reports to underpin our program. And as we want to make sure that our work is aligned to both the VGs and the LGAF process. But the BBA is much broader than land, it covers a number of very critical issues such as markets, including contract farming, seed, fertilizer, mechanization, water, electricity, communication (ICT), land, rural transport, finance and in the future livestock. Given the breadth and the incredible number of indicators that people suggest, we have to be very selective. So in answer to your question, the Voluntary Guidelines have been taken into account in the initial preparation. We clearly cannot cover all the issues, but as the project evolves the emphasis on the different elements is likely to change in response to the lessons on the ground, stakeholder needs and in response to changing priorties and issues. We would encourage you to be engaged and reflect back to us how we can improve the indicators.
We certainly take the view that we could well have missed out on important issues despite quite a extensive consultation, and from that consultation we have already changed the emphasis on the indicators to a fair degree. We are in the process of raising some additional funds to extend the scope of the program in the future, particularly around the capacity building in Africa, mainstreaming of gender and environmental sustainability into the existing indicators and adding livestock.
Hi everyone - that brings us to the end of this live session. We'll leave the discussion open, so please do continue to post your comments. Thanks to everyone for participating, in particular our panel!
Good question. And how have the countries in which BBA's pilot studies are going to be conducted been chosen? Was countries' practices in term of support to smallholder agriculture a criteria?
Agreed. These are really important points!
There have been edits since those ones were posted, but we haven't seen these yet - if anyone has seen more updated versions please let us know. We have also asked the Bank for a more formal consultation process and for a place where these documents can be accessed so that we can input into more 'up to date' issues.
There will be 10 pilot countries and I do have a list of these.... just got to track it down... Alison do you have it on hand?
Thanks for convening such a great discussion Zahid. It would be interesting to hear more from the panel on benchmarking versus rankings. It's an impact discussion in itself, and may influence sustainable company investments as well as the policy environment.
Hi David
Thanks for raising the issue of gender. The most immediate challenge the many women farmers is that they do not have any formally recognised ownership or secure tenure of the land they farm, which affects their ability and willingness to take the economic risks required when farming for the market. For example, they cannot get access to credit on affordable terms, or make capital or labour investment as they have no secure 'collateral' to fall back on, etc. There are other polices or regulations too that can affect women smallholders differently, for example regulations governing cooperatives or other producer organisations (entry level requirements can prevent many women from becoming members). I think it would be good to encourage the World Bank to do a specific Deep Dive on regulations and/or agriculture policies that are at present gender 'blind', and find positive examples where gender has been addressed.
Certainly the list that Grahame refered to earlier is broad, capturing a variety of contexts and many different types of agricultural systems: Rwanda, Nepal, Ethiopia ,Mozambique, Uganda, Guatemala, Philippines, Morocco. Ukraine and Spain.
I don't know if smallholder ag support was a consideration, that's a good Q. Even within countries there are some very different strategies to support agriculture e.g. I heard a representative from Morroco talk about the govts different support strategies to high value export ag and to low-input, marginalised farmers
Many thanks. Please let us know what the World Bank says about a more formal consultation process.
It would be great to have the new documents and the list of countries.
Thanks Will and Sarah.
It is probably best to start by putting the BBA in context. The majority of the World Bank's programs are focused on smallholder farmers. We were specifically requested to look at the business of agriculture. We wanted to get away from the default mode of thinking that this was all around large-scale agribusinesses. In the grander scheme of things, in the developing world large businesses are not especially important. We also take the view along with IIED, IFPRI and others that you need to take a nuanced and segmented view of the smallholder sector.
The focus of this program is about encouraging the emergence of commercial family farms in particular. If you run the numbers what becomes very clear that is that the future growth in the demand for food is almost exclusively amongst the urban populations in the developing world. Producers are therefore becoming increasingly dislocated in time, place and culture from changing urban demand. In Africa we have soft data suggesting that about half the urban demand is being fed by imports. This is extremely serious. Without this cash flow into the rural economy all that we would like to achieve in terms of poverty reduction, inclusive growth, jobs, all that we hope to achieve will become increasingly difficult.
Within the farming community there are a number of people that are trapped in farming and would like the option of moving out. And then there are those for whom it is a lifestyle choice to be a subsistence farmer and there are some extermely skilled farmers who are struggling to make a living on half a hectare of land. If you add up the aggregate land area of the medium and larger-scale small scale farmers, and factor in the marketable surplus produced by these smallholder sectors. We believe that this group offers the best opportunity for being able to deliver food into the urban markets competitively. We would also like to see a situation where a smallholder farmer who has the appetite, interest and skills to be able to operate on a larger scale, can access the land most likely on lease and rent, from those who want to escape farming but want the security of tenure of their land to enable them to lease the land to those who want to use the land actively and effectively.
The BBA program is therefore is trying to set up a situation, which is not about large-scale farming and large-scale agribusinesses. But it does focus on the business of agriculture i.e. where product is being actively traded and trying to encourage the emergence of a rural economy which is attracting in significant new cash flows from the urban and regional markets.
And to make sure that I am not being misunderstood, most of the World Bank's work is around small small-scale farmers and we are focusing here on a specific sector within the small farmer economy, and building the enabling environment to support their emergence in terms of regulation, policies, and investments. Ultimately, the intention is that policy makers are far better informed where their country is placed in the process of agricultural transformation, provide some metrics of performance - on the basis of what you can measure you can better manage, and enable them to compare their portfolio of policies and regulations with those of neighbors, competitors and countries who appeared to have gone through the process of agricultural transformation successfully.
Please let me know Alice if the comments that I have made above cover your questions. If not I will be happy to expand.
Thanks so much to everyone for taking part in the discussion. Really useful comments and input - though a huge amount to get through. Thanks particularly to Grahame for trying to keep up with the questions! Do continue to comment and if you want to keep in touch with what we are doing keep an eye on our website - http://www.asfg.org.uk/framework-report/advocacy-info-and-resources. Also, friend me on BFP and I will try to remember to post updates.
Hi, this is Christina from Endeva!
I'd like to share with you the "Inclusive Business Policies" report we published last week. It identifies three policy approaches to strengthening the interface between poor communities and companies: enabling and encouraging companies to enter the low-income market, and empowering poor people to engage with companies. 25 of the 158 examples of policies we collected are from the agricultural sector. Many countries already have a lot of programs to support smallholders, but instead of creating markets for business, they often undermine them. Voucher schemes for inputs, for example, could be used as a means to create a market for fertilizer, rather than competing with input providers. Over time, vouchers could then be phased out. Likewise, insurance can support smallholders to invest with a more long-term view, and governments can provide subsidies via private insurance companies, as with Agroacemex in Mexico. Facilitating business between the formal and the informal sector, e.g. by creating effective legal structures for farmer organisations, can also be important. There are policies along all four types of information, rules, financial resources and structure and capacity that can help increase smallholder-company linkages.
Brazil could be an interesting example to study: The government created a special Ministry for Small Farms and has introduced a variety of programs to integrate smallholders better into the market, e.g. via crop insurance, public procurement, or incentives for biodiesel companies to procure from small farms. (Just found a summary here: http://www.rural21.com/uploads/media/rural_2011_4_36-39_01.pdf)
I look forward to the results of the BBA! When are they expected?