Let Us Put Sustainable Agriculture Development on the Front Desk

– Jagannath Kafle

According to the National Geographic Society, about 12,000 years ago, human civilization transitioned from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural era. It entered the stage of modernization by finding a solution to self-produced permanent food sources from the uncertain dependence on natural food resources by domesticating the potential wild grains, plants, and animals for cultivation in various convenient parts of the world. Agriculture brought about such a change in society that the way of life of human civilization changed. Also, with the flow of time, civilizations progressed from agriculture, through grain processing and additional enterprises, convenient marketing, modernization, and urbanization.

The Agricultural Revolution was the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain from the mid-17th century to the late 19th century due to increases in labour and land productivity. In Europe as a whole, including Britain, agricultural production grew faster than population growth. Through long-term agricultural practices, Britain greatly increased the production of crops and livestock by changing crop rotation, improving soil fertility, and breeding. The increase in domestic production and food productivity in Europe in the nineteenth century enabled import displacement as well as the conversion of agricultural produce and part of the labour force to industrialization.

During the First and Second World Wars, there was no big discussion about agricultural development in the whole world. In the nineteen-sixties, due to innovation and rapid technological progress, after the Green Revolution, the world’s population growth rate was overtaken by the growth rate of agriculture (except for sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia), disproving the Malthusian theory of population. After the Green Revolution of the 1960s, for almost four decades, the price of agricultural products in the world market remained stable and lower than the yield growth rate.

With the wave of liberalization in the 1990s, the increasingly integrated world market, low profits due to stable prices of agricultural produce, and the negative effects of the Green Revolution such as excessive use of pesticides, loss of biodiversity, and subsequent pollution, the agricultural sector seems to have become a low priority. Most of the investors shifted their investment in agriculture to other profitable alternative sectors, while the donor organizations also considered agriculture as not an engine of economic growth cut the support of the agricultural sector, and diverted the investment towards social and economic infrastructure development elsewhere.

Again, due to the side effects of the Green Revolution, the challenges of climate change, the poverty remaining in large parts of the global population, the growing global food crisis, and the growing environmental challenges, since the beginning of the 21st century agricultural development has returned to the agenda as a global issue. In particular, intensive research by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the donor community has established that the agricultural sector plays a more important role than any other sector of the economy in reducing rural poverty, solving the global food crisis, addressing the effects of climate change, and addressing the challenges of environmental degradation.

The wave of liberalization and privatization that came to the world in the nineteen eighties and nineties brought about a great change in the world economy. On the one hand, the dominance of private multinational (international) companies was established, while the global value chain and marketing through international trade led to the capture of the means of production, production, markets, and consumers by the big businessmen of developed countries.

On the other hand, the breakdown of the state-controlled agricultural coordination chain (vertical coordination chain) in some developing countries also hindered the supply of inputs, tools, and credit to small farmers. As a result, the marginalized farmers came to be trapped in further distress and poverty. Small farmers, producers, and suppliers in developing countries have been adversely affected by world markets. As a result, the welfare, livelihood, and easy access to nutritious and affordable food for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in the world has emerged as a tragic and terrible problem that none of us can personally overcome.

The food crisis of 2007-08, the COVID-19 pandemic,the Russia-Ukraine/Israel-Gaza conflict, other armed conflicts, climate change, and rising food prices, as well as local, national, and global conditions, have made it clear that the role of agriculture in developing countries is becoming more important. Due to the excessive use of natural resources such as fossil fuels, forest resources, and water resources, there is a global shortage and severe environmental challenges in the ecosystem, climate change has brought about a major change in the calendar of farmers, but there is no doubt that sustainable agricultural development is a milestone in developing countries.

Today, a lot of attention is paid to the high-value and main products of agriculture in the world market chain, but it seems that it is possible to address the agendas of food security, poverty reduction, and development in developing countries only if we can increase the world production by including small farmers and producers in those networks. Conscious consumers in urban areas and developed countries today prefer the timely availability of food and agricultural products for consumption through reliable, consistent, quality, and convenient market arrangements.

Increasing urbanization reduces the cost of transportation, marketing, and distribution of agricultural products. With easy access to means of production, technology, and financial markets, small farmers and producers also have the opportunity to be integrated into the supply chain, diversifying their products according to the demand choices of urban consumers, time, and cultural changes. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage small farmers for productive services, rural or agricultural tourism, off-farm activities, and alternative sources of income.

The concept paper presented at the 2022 United Nations General Assembly aims to build a coordinated, joint, and common understanding of the main issues and challenges of the current global crisis and global policy implementation to solve the food crisis. Agricultural and food systems and financial and energy markets work in tandem. Current crises are linked to food, fuel, health, climate, inequality, and other multifaceted practical problems and challenges.

The challenges of making agricultural produce accessible to sustainable, convenient, and healthy diets are increasing. The number of global hunger and malnutrition is increasing. The global community has to pay the huge cost of living for eight billion people. In this scenario, the global community has realized the need to take drastic measures to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, which has become a more serious challenge than ever before.

Traditionally, the role of agriculture was to provide food, create jobs, earn export earnings, create savings and funds for investment, and produce primary commodities for industrialization. Today, the role of the agricultural sector is not only limited to the economic contribution measured by the market that traditionally provides goods and services.

It also plays an important role in social and environmental contributions. Environmental services such as soil conservation, watershed conservation, forest and biodiversity conservation, carbon conservation, and climate change impacts play a major role. Similarly, agriculture plays a decisive role in social services poverty reduction, food security, social safety net, buffer during epidemics and crises, social inclusion, and many cross-sector linkages that cannot be measured by economic indicators.

Nepal has been listed as a zone with high climate impact and risk due to its underdeveloped existence in the Himalayan region where Nepal’s economy and livelihood are based on agriculture. Currently, Nepal’s agricultural development and land use policies are linked to sustainable development goals, mainly focusing on goal number two – food security. It is based on an agricultural development policy guided by a sustainable agricultural production system to meet the growing demand for food in the country, export-oriented agricultural production, and comparative advantage.

For the development of the agricultural sector, mainly six types of dimensions need to be analysed. Means of agricultural production; Information on individuals, groups, and households involved in agriculture; Information on quantity, level, and variety of products; Market trade flows, transport, networks, and trade costs (survey); demand estimation; And also, should have information about supply estimates. Input materials for agricultural production include fertilizers, seeds, tools, technology, sheep, financial and insurance facilities, and factors that affect agriculture ecologically, such as soil structure, water availability, climate, geography, etc., should be taken into consideration.

In recent years, extensive land fragmentation, rapid urbanization, increasing barren land, and landholder absenteeism have led to significant changes in land use patterns for crops in Nepal. Migration, off-farm activities, and real estate business are seen as major causes of changes in farming and land use patterns. Due to remittances, the purchasing power of customers has increased which led to a rise in imports rather than incentives for domestic agricultural products. Research has revealed that crop production has had little impact on progress in food security. Land management practices in Nepal have been among the weakest in the world so far, which has affected productivity-based land use, soil quality, crop production, and sustainable agricultural development.

If the agricultural development strategy 2015-2035 implemented by Nepal can be literally implemented, it can prove to be a milestone. Its overall objective includes five dimensions of food and nutrition security, poverty reduction, competitiveness, high and equitable income of rural households, and strengthening of farmers’ rights. The National Adaptation Plan 2021-2050 is important to adopt sustainability in agriculture in Nepal and to develop the agricultural sector in an integrated manner. The proposed project seeks to address capacity gaps by increasing understanding of the impact of climate change on Nepal’s agricultural sector and integrating climate change risk management into planning and budgeting processes within the agricultural sector at all levels.

Despite the adaptation of adequate policy measures for modernization and the strong contribution of agriculture to the national economy, a large part of agriculture remains in the traditional stage, young investors are less attractive, and the supply chain is weak. In this situation, to face the related economic, social, and environmental challenges, the entire state system has to be dedicated to the sustainable development of this sector of the economy to cope with local to global challenges.