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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Today, the Nobel Committee awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Program, citing its herculean efforts to combat hunger, especially in war-torn areas. In doing so, the Committee declared that it “wishes to turn the eyes of the world to the millions of people who suffer or face the threat of hunger”.
With COVID-19 threatening to drive 132 million more people into extreme hunger (and has already driven 100 million people to its corollary, extreme poverty), it is more critical than ever to invest in sustainable market solutions that strengthen rural livelihoods. So let’s turn our gaze to small farmers and then back to the role of small businesses and entrepreneurship. First, some numbers:
- Two billion people, 26% of the world’s population, experienced hunger or food insecurity in 2019, and 690 million of them are chronically hungry. Worse still, this number has increased in the last five years.
- 75% of the world’s hungry are small farmers and their families, despite producing a significant amount of the world’s food.
Small farmers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are the face of hunger. But let’s be clear: the problem is not that there is no enough food to nourish everyone; the problem is that too many I can not pay put food on the table. Therefore, global action to reverse this trend and get back on track towards the UN’s “zero hunger” goal by 2030 must have rural livelihoods at its center.
To build sustainable livelihoods, smallholders need at least three things: access to reliable income, resources to invest in the growth and health of their farms, and support to cope with livelihood impacts like COVID- 19 or climate change. But the typical small farmer lives hundreds of miles from accessible markets, leaving them with little choice but to sell their crops to middlemen at rock-bottom prices. They cannot afford the inputs necessary to improve yields and productivity. And for all that, they lack the ability to recover from shocks.
Humanitarian aid through vital food assistance deserves much more funding in emergencies. But what is our long-term solution to hunger? The World Food Program itself recognizes that supporting the smallholder market is key to building sustainable food systems and promoting food security.
This is where small and growing agricultural businesses come in. These companies (such as farmer cooperatives, agricultural processors or millers) source from thousands of farmers at a time, which means that they can connect producers with local and international markets where their crops make a profit. They provide their suppliers with fertilizers, better seed varieties, and training on agricultural methods that can increase yields and reduce climate-related risks. They even create employment opportunities, particularly for marginalized workforces of women and youth, which provide rural families with a sustainable career path and stable income. Some of these companies not only improve rural livelihoods, but also fight hunger more directly by processing and selling nutritious food products to local communities.
In addition to these companies, many social entrepreneurs are tackling the problem of rural poverty and hunger, testing innovative solutions to produce more nutritious locally grown food and increase farmers’ incomes. Take, for example, Anushka Ratnayake, who founded myAgro, a mobile booking platform that helps farmers save for inputs like seeds or fertilizers that can help them improve their crops. Or Jehiel Oliver, whose Hello Tractor mimics Uber’s ride-sharing technology by allowing remote farmers access to time-saving and productivity-enhancing tractors economically. Like small and growing agribusinesses, these entrepreneurs are filling gaps in the market and fixing a broken food system.
It will take a concerted push from governments, investors, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and more to build a thriving and resilient smallholder agricultural market. But this effort is essential. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, small agribusiness and growth companies face a stubborn $ 82 billion funding gap, leaving roughly 75% of their total catalytic capital need unmet. Rural communities urgently need ambitious, innovative and strategic approaches to investing in agriculture and food systems.
That urgency is only increasing. By 2050, the world population is expected to exceed 9 billion and most of this growth will occur in low-income countries. To feed this booming population, farmers will need to boost global food production by about 60 percent. Which means that without bold action, the worrying upward trend of hunger and food insecurity in the world will skyrocket.
We cannot turn away from this looming catastrophe. We must – as the Nobel Committee urged – direct our eyes and our action towards the hungry of the world. Food aid is absolutely vital in addressing humanitarian emergencies, including COVID-19. But leveraging business solutions through agribusiness can build the long-term, sustainable and resilient future we need.
