The myth of smallholder farming

The ongoing quest to make smallholder farming more sustainable in various stretches of sub-Saharan Africa is perplexing. We are well aware that a growing number of rural Africans are ‘branching out’ into non-farm activities because smallholder farming is unable to sustain them. Yet, we are burdened with commentary from the likes of the World Bank and various bilaterals that points to how 80 percent of rural Tanzanians or 70 percent of rural Ghanaians depend upon farming for their livelihood. Of course they do: who in rural Tanzania, rural Ghana or rural sub-Saharan Africa for that matter doesn’t have a farm, or aspires to own farmland? These people, however, are simply producing food for themselves and their families: corn, millet, groundnuts, maize, yam and cassava. It is the Tetleys and Nescafes of the world that are engaged in the business side of things in African agriculture, armed with the cash to pay for the requisite expensive inputs to harvest lucrative cash crops for export like tea and coffee.

So I understand, on the one hand, why African smallholders need support: they have to eat. But why the façade – specifically, why convey the impression that this support can help the smallholder compete with the multinationals in a liberalized agricultural market? I interviewed two women yesterday who explained that their farms, located some five miles from the mine sites where they work, produce two bags of millet each season. I repeat: two bags. Yet, there are countless projects here in the Upper East Region, carried out by dedicated staff, which aim to support these subsistence peoples’ agricultural efforts. Support them how? There is no water, only one growing season here, and more importantly, no money in Ghana’s north. These people already have goats, pigs and cows, which, along with their two bags of millet, can carry them through part of the year. But what about the other part of the year and their need for disposable income in general? This is where the mining sector comes in. As one of the ladies put it, ‘I can earn 500,000 cedis [50 US dollars] at times, which is enough to put my children in school and provide for the house’. Another noted than ‘400,000 cedis is a lot of money for me. It is hard work but I can support my farming and family’.

Maybe those engaged in providing support for agriculture in areas like this should engage in a ‘critical re-think’: instead of buying these ladies farm implements to harvest fields which, for the most part, have no crops, perhaps it is best to buy them gloves, to protect themselves from the rocks they carry in the mines – support for the activity which provides for their daily needs.