Capacity gaps in transforming smallholder farming continue to find themselves in the rut of basic issues, and this prevent them from moving forward. Climate change adaptation, according to an expert, is one of them.
During the 2023 Regional Climate Smart Agriculture Policy Dialogue, the executive secretary at Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), Mamadou Biteye, pointed out six types of capacity gaps curtailing agricultural growth for smallholder farmers.
These include critical skills, knowledge, indigenous technological innovation, infrastructure finance, and finally climate change adaptation.
“Over the past decades we have seen the fall of extension services, ones provided by government countries, [and] less investment in building capacity for smallholder farmers,” he explained.
Plethora of challenges
Sharing Biteye’s sentiments was a climate adaption and mitigation senior scientist for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Dr Martin Moyo. According to Moyo, there’s a plethora of challenges plaguing farmers.
“Small-scale producers and other rural people are at the heart of food system transformation and efforts,” said Moyo.
He added that there are more failures in smallholder farming than successes and it relates to a number of reasons, such as income, cultural values norms sustainability, equity, gender and youth.
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Fighting for smallholder farmers
To bridge the gap, a couple of things need to be done. “Develop more critical technical skills, not only looking at a public sector but empowering young innovators and the private sector,” Biteye explained.
Meanwhile, Moyo believes that building more infrastructure is key to moving forward “The challenges do not only start and stop with infrastructure but also span across policy, environment, financial, and technical barriers,” he said.
There’s a also mixture of institutional market and production issues. Moyo said the focus should remain on innovation rather than production, and sharing the innovation process is very important.
In desperate need of innovation and research
According to the executive manager at South African Wine Industry Transformation Unit (Sawitu) Wendy Petersen, they are on a mission to fight for the needs of smallholding farmers within the industry.
She referred to a needs-analysis database that their team developed in response to people development and capacity building.
“Our emerging farmers are in desperate need of innovation and research,” she said.
Another way to bridge the gap practically, Peterson said, is market access for farmers. Especially those who want to export. “We make sure that our farmers are actually accredited when they need to export,” she explained. She also emphasised the need for black-owned brands to enter the market.
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