Covid-19 questions our development strategies

The crisis is far from over, yet the "world of tomorrow," the post-coronavirus world, is already on everyone's minds. The future of the food system occupies a prominent place in it. Two camps are clashing. On one side, there is the "classical" school of thought, illustrated, for example, by the World Bank's latest report on the impact of Covid-19 in Africa.[1], advocates a range of measures to strengthen the resilience of agricultural sectors, without however calling into question their underlying logic: specialization, concentration, globalization. On the other hand, an "alternative" camp, of which Ipes Food is one of the leaders, advocates in all countries a radical change in the "industrial" food complex, based on agroecology, small producers and short supply chains[2].

Here we would like to contribute to the debate by noting that the current health crisis reveals undeniable weaknesses in certain conceptions of agricultural development, without these being dead ends.

A previous article on the FARM blog warned of the risks of a decline in European agriculture, linked to a decline in production, which is certainly paved with good intentions but which would in reality harm both global food security and the fight against climate change.[3]This contribution highlights the limits of another idea, according to which the intensification of agriculture would be the key to reducing poverty in the least developed countries.

That increasing agricultural productivity is a necessary condition for development, not only of agriculture but more generally of economies, is attested by history (counter-examples are rare). Countries that believed they could skip this step paid dearly; and it is probably the source of the problems of many African countries.[4]But whether higher yields are sufficient to significantly reduce rural poverty and reduce social inequality is another story. As usual, the reality is more complex.

To begin with, there's a fact: in Africa, as in Asia, agriculture is predominantly made up of small farms. Things get complicated when you unpack the argument. "The common narrative about small farmers repeats over and over again that they produce 70 billion pounds of the food consumed in low- and middle-income countries. But is this really true?" asks a recent report from the Foresight4Food initiative.[5]. In fact, 72 % of farms in the world have an average area of less than 1 hectare. If we consider farms smaller than 2 hectares, they represent a total of 84 % of the total number of farms (this is roughly the same percentage in India and sub-Saharan Africa), cover 12 % of the agricultural area and only produce 20 % of the production (table).

Under these conditions, if we consider sub-Saharan African countries, increasing the yields of these small farms will hardly increase total agricultural production. Part of the surplus will undoubtedly be absorbed by the households living on these farms, for their own consumption. Moreover, given the size of these households, generally around 5 to 6 people, the gains resulting from an intensification of production will have little impact on the average income per person. In most cases, they will be far too low to lift family members out of poverty. This is clearly shown by the work carried out at ICRAF (International Center for Agroforestry Research).[7].

This does not mean that increasing land productivity is of no interest to these households. Quite the contrary: they will earn extra income and have more to eat; perhaps they will be able to escape hunger, eat better, and educate their children more easily. But this is a survival strategy, not a development strategy as such, if by this term we mean the triggering, on a national scale, of a dual dynamic of improving food security, involving producing more to feed expanding cities, and significant and sustainable income growth, allowing for more consumption and investment.

Ultimately, only small producers who are able to expand their farms or engage in higher-value production will truly benefit from increased yields—which will likely increase inequality with other farmers. The question is what policies can be implemented to reach these "others," who are not directly affected by this approach and constitute the vast majority of farm households. The various possible options revolve either around the payment of direct aid, as the Indian government does, or around diversifying the incomes of small producers.

But this diversification requires finding employment outside the farm, whether it involves consolidating an already existing multi-activity, combining agricultural and non-agricultural income, or abandoning agriculture altogether for a more remunerative job (probably with a mix of these approaches depending on the household members). Therefore, creating synergies between towns and countryside, within the framework of integrated rural development policies, becomes a priority.[8]. It should be noted that this strategy is not opposed to the intensification of agricultural production; it is complementary to it. This is why agricultural intensification is not a dead end, as some claim by calling it "productivist," but a simple ingredient in a development policy that must act on multiple levers.

The disruption to agricultural sectors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is plunging millions of people into poverty and hunger. It is forcing us to reflect on the limitations of our policies and the necessary revisions.

[1] Africa's Pulse, No 21, Spring 2020: “An analysis of Issues Shaping Africa's Economic Future”.

[2] “COVID-19 and the crisis in food systems: Symptoms, causes and potential solutions”, communicated by IPES-Food, April 2020.

[3] Jean-Christophe Debar, “Covid-19, global food security and the CAP”, April 6, 2020, https://fondation-farm.org/covid-19-la-securite-alimentaire-mondiale-et-la-pac/

[4] Jean-Christophe Debar and Abdoul Fattath Tapsoba, “African agriculture and the challenge of structural transformation,” in ARCADIA 2019. Africa and global commodity markets, Cyclope – Policy Center for the New South.

[5] Woodhill J., Hasnain, S. and Griffith, A. 2020. “Farmers and food systems: What future for small-scale agriculture?”, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.

[6] Lowder, SK, Skoet, J. and Raney, T. 2016. “The number, size, and distribution of farms, smallholder farms, and family farms worldwide.” World Development, 87:16-29. Ricciardi, V., Ramankutty, N., Mehrabi, Z., Jarvis, L. and Chookolingo, B. 2018. “How much of the world's food do smallholders produce? Global Food Security, 17:64-72. Herrero, M., Thornton, PK, Power, B., Bogard, JR, Remans, R., Fritz et al. 2017. “Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis”. The Lancert Planetary Health, 1(1): e33-e42.

[7] See for example A. Gassner et al., 2019. “Poverty eradication and food security through agriculture in Africa: Rethinking objectives and entry points”, Outlook on Agriculture, Vol. 48(4) 309-315.

[8] Bruno Losch, 2016. “Structural transformation to boost youth labor demand in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of agriculture, rural areas and territorial development”, Employment working paper No 204, International Labor Office.