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Chapter 5 Sustainable agricultural intensification 155
South China Sea these operations have become a major source of nutrient pollution.
Amid concerns over climate change, livestock is increasingly being recognized as a
contributor to the process (as well as a potential victim of it).
In all regions of the developing world, there is a need for crop and livestock
production systems to become more intensive if the world’s growing population is to
be fed, now and in the future. In the different regions, smallholder farmers will have
to confront different problems. Yet everywhere,
intensification approaches need to make more
efficient use of resources: particularly fertilizers,
pesticides and – above all – water. Indeed, without
changes in the way water is used for agricultural
production, there will be crises in many parts of
the world. 243 New approaches also need to be
non-polluting and environmentally sustainable,
preserving or enhancing soil fertility and protecting
Bakary Diédhiou,
biodiversity. The alternative is the loss of the very male, 60 years, Senegal
assets on which smallholder farmers depend for their
livelihoods. Increased climatic variability and climate
change are expected to result in an escalation in
extreme weather-related events – floods, drought,
high temperatures, as well as shorter and more
uncertain growing seasons and new pest and disease
patterns. Intensification, of both crop and livestock
production systems, also needs to render farming
systems more resilient to shocks and stresses.
If agriculture is to be a way out of poverty for at
least some rural people, then new approaches to Abdoulaye Badji,
increased productivity should be accessible to poor male, 50 years, Senegal
smallholder farmers and livestock producers, and
provide attractive opportunities for youth. They also
need to be more accessible than traditional approaches to rural women, who play
critical roles in smallholder agriculture. Particularly in low income countries, women
make up a substantial majority of the agricultural workforce and produce most of
the food that is consumed locally; but even in some countries in the Middle East and
North Africa, the percentage of economically active women operating in agriculture
is larger than the percentage of men – in Algeria, for example, it is 40 per cent for
women compared with 16 per cent for men. 244 As discussed in chapter 2, the
productivity of women farmers is constrained by the same factors that affect small
agricultural producers in general, but this is compounded by a range of genderspecific
factors such as unequal control over key productive assets, unequal access to
“The soil is no longer fertile. And there
is not enough rain. We try to use
organic fertilizers like dead leaves,
cattle dung, and so on. Still it doesn’t
improve very much… You see, working
the land is difficult. But since it is the
only thing I have, it is my livelihood.”
“The problem today is that no matter
how hard you work, it’s never enough
to feed the family… The land was
more fertile [in my father’s time]. They
used to get more out of the land. They
didn’t need to cultivate big areas.
Crops were healthy. Their cattle used
to walk around and fertilize the soil. In
fact today we cultivate more land, for
fewer crops. We don’t have the means
to buy fertilizers to increase yields.”