1 min
The future of our nation hinges on our ability to produce enough food for our increasing population. We cannot be called a sovereign nation when our food security is still in doubt. One key pillar of food sovereignty is that it focuses on food for people. This was discussed in the previous letter.
Another pillar focuses on building knowledge and skills. Having adequate knowledge and skill sets to improve production activities in agriculture is so important to achieve food sovereignty. This is because it values and builds on existing knowledge - the traditional knowledge and skills of food producers and providers (fishers, herders, hunters, forest dwellers, etc.) and local communities. It encourages research and innovation that supports and enhances these local systems, while rejecting technologies that undermine or ignore them.
As we work with smallholder farmers, building their capacity towards increasing productivity and efficiency should be a priority. It is beyond training them on good agricultural practices, which had been done over the years, to incentivise them to actually implement these practices on their farms. To identify what practices are working from those not, and to further research on the working ones to give better results. In addition, building knowledge should focus on knowledge transfer between and amongst the farmers.
From the research institutes to the farmers, we need to improve our agricultural extension system, where we develop efficient and effective channels for information dissemination that could be done effortlessly. We need to mobilise more investment into private agricultural extension organisations whose main aim is to improve extension processes and build sustainability into the system rather than the public funded system, which is underfunded and lacks a pathway to continuity. We need a system that provides relevant, appropriate and timely information to the farmers irrespective of their locations and also applicable to their realities. We need a system that can seamlessly localize information, bit by bit piece them together and translate into knowledge and skills that are easily practiced by farmers irrespective of their educational level.
There are a lot of evidence-based results of action research on improving agricultural productivity on the shelf of many research institutions, without finding their ways to the end users, farmers. This is because of the weak information system in the agricultural sector. To renew the hope of achieving food sovereignty at this time, we need to repair our broken information system, and overhaul this system to adapt to our changing farmers' realities. Without knowledge, food security becomes a myth and food sovereignty becomes a history that would be told by our children. We cannot afford to lose our sovereignty; OUR FUTURE!
Yours-in-Service
Babatunde
As we work with smallholder farmers, building their capacity towards increasing productivity and efficiency should be a priority. It is beyond training them on good agricultural practices, which had been done over the years, to incentivise them to actually implement these practices on their farms. To identify what practices are working from those not, and to further research on the working ones to give better results. In addition, building knowledge should focus on knowledge transfer between and amongst the farmers.
From the research institutes to the farmers, we need to improve our agricultural extension system, where we develop efficient and effective channels for information dissemination that could be done effortlessly. We need to mobilise more investment into private agricultural extension organisations whose main aim is to improve extension processes and build sustainability into the system rather than the public funded system, which is underfunded and lacks a pathway to continuity. We need a system that provides relevant, appropriate and timely information to the farmers irrespective of their locations and also applicable to their realities. We need a system that can seamlessly localize information, bit by bit piece them together and translate into knowledge and skills that are easily practiced by farmers irrespective of their educational level.
There are a lot of evidence-based results of action research on improving agricultural productivity on the shelf of many research institutions, without finding their ways to the end users, farmers. This is because of the weak information system in the agricultural sector. To renew the hope of achieving food sovereignty at this time, we need to repair our broken information system, and overhaul this system to adapt to our changing farmers' realities. Without knowledge, food security becomes a myth and food sovereignty becomes a history that would be told by our children. We cannot afford to lose our sovereignty; OUR FUTURE!
Yours-in-Service
Babatunde
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