The need to pay more attention to small-scale farmers and agro-ecological approaches is highlighted in an opinion piece in The Express Tribune.

Syed Mohammad Ali, a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, explains how around 75 per cent of the world’s poorest people still live in rural areas and largely rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

He believes agribusiness and corporate farming in developing countries is “exacerbating agricultural land scarcity for smaller farmers” and providing limited employment opportunities, often with meagre wages.

Shifting towards more ecological approaches, says Ali, is necessary to deal with the impacts of climate change, such as water scarcity and recurrent bouts of food insecurity.

He cites a 2013 report by the United Nation’s Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which advocates for more sustainable agricultural practices such as organic farming, better integration between crop and livestock production, and increased incorporation of agroforestry and wild vegetation within agricultural policies and forest and grassland management. Adoption of such practices would help to improve smallholder productivity, but there “is little evidence of such changes taking place,” says Ali.

He concludes by calling for national policymakers, as well as the international trade and development agencies, to begin taking agro-ecological approaches towards farming more seriously.

Read the full story: Stop ignoring small-scale farmers