NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
TVET, Agricultural Development and Rural Poverty Reduction
By Edward Heinemann, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Rome
Email: e.heinemann@ifad.org
Keywords: smallholder farmers; new challenges; productivity and profitability, sustainability and resilience; sustainable agricultural intensification; knowledge-intensive; analytical skills; agricultural education and training.
Summary: This piece argues that the context for smallholder farming is changing across the developing world, and highlights the new challenges that smallholders face. Responding to these challenges requires sustainable agricultural intensification, to build farming systems that are productive, profitable, sustainable and resilient to the shocks of climate change. For farmers to adopt such an agenda they need a range of skills: not only life and technical skills, but also the ability to analyse and contextualise. The article argues that greater attention should be given to agricultural education and training, in the context of a new narrative for agriculture, and it concludes by arguing that there is a need for the international development community to take up this critical agenda.
______________
In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that a skills development agenda in the rural areas has to go beyond agriculture and encompass a range of life and vocational skills related to off-farm employment. Rightly so. Yet at the same time there has perhaps never been a more important time to focus on agriculture, and particularly to support to education and training for the two billion or so people in the developing world who depend to a greater or lesser degree on smallholder farming.
Across the developing world, the context for smallholder agriculture is changing – in some parts of some countries at breakneck speed. In the many rapidly growing economies of the developing world, cities and second-tier towns are growing fast – and ever-expanding urban populations with higher incomes provide new markets for farmers. In a significant number of countries, agriculture is now high on the political agenda, and in some of these, rural populations are being courted by politicians as never before.
Yet there are also huge challenges. The food price crisis of 2008 is widely agreed to have ushered in a new era of not only high, but also increasingly volatile global food prices. Large parts of the developing world face enormous problems of environmental degradation: declining soil fertility, salinization of irrigated soils, desertification, and increasing problems of water competition and water shortage. Climate change is exacerbating these trends, and creating new levels of uncertainty for smallholder farmers. And the new price environment for foods and the global interest in biofuels are driving large-scale investors to seek out land for production – land that is usually being used by rural people for some sort of economic purpose. It is, in short, a world of new opportunities, but also of increasing risks.
For smallholder farming to leverage increased household incomes and provide a route – or at least a first step – out of poverty, it needs to satisfy a number of key conditions. It has to be productive, linked to markets and profitable; yet it also has to be sustainable in its use of the natural resource base; and, increasingly, it needs to be resilient to the effects of climate change such as increased temperatures, longer dry spells or excessive rainfall. What this means in different contexts will vary enormously, yet in all regions the elements of the challenge are essentially the same: how to make farming more productive, more profitable, more sustainable and more resilient. It is a challenge that is widely referred to today as sustainable agricultural intensification.
When, in the 1970s, farmers – particularly in Asia – substantially increased their productivity, they did so by adopting Green Revolution technology: improved seeds, increased use of agro-chemicals and irrigation. It was a relatively simple package, and while there were certainly constraints to its adoption – particularly for the poorest farmers – it was not generally lack of knowledge that prevented smallholder farmers from increasing their yields. The challenge they face today though is different, and far more complex. Sustainable agricultural intensification is not founded simply on the application of a known set of technologies and associated agronomic practices; although improved technologies are critical, much more besides is required. Farmers need to develop an understanding of how agro-ecological processes work, and of the importance of productive, sustainable and resilient farming systems, in which a range of different crops, livestock and even aquaculture activities all play a role in contributing to these objectives; they need to strengthen their capacity to draw on scientific principles and synthesize these with their own traditional knowledge; they need to be able to conduct their own research, analyse the findings and introduce innovations into their farming systems; and above all, they need to be able to develop their own, highly contextualised approach to sustainable intensification. It is a knowledge-intensive approach to farming.
The key questions then are – what are the skills that farmers need to pursue this agenda; how do they acquire these skills; and what sort of institutions can enable them to do so? Clearly, there are no simple answers to these questions. The skills include life skills, technical and vocational skills and, increasingly, analytical or ‘contextualization’ skills; the learning routes encompass primary and secondary education, technical and vocational skills development, extension or farm advisory systems, and farmer-to-farmer learning; and the institutions include key role for the public sector, for NGOs and – if perhaps to a lesser extent than in the non-farm economy – the private sector.
In many countries, educational syllabuses, even at primary level, have been urban-based, and agriculture needs to find its way back on to the education agenda. But if farming is to be a modern, potentially profitable business that also addresses issues of environmental management and climate change, then it needs to be given new prestige. It will never become these things if it continues to be presented as the occupation of last choice, practised only when all other opportunities have been exhausted. All of this needs to be done in schools that offer a decent quality of education to their students, on a par with that offered in the urban areas. At the same time, there is a desperate need to improve the supply side of the equation: in many countries enrolment rates are lower in rural areas than they are in urban areas – and rural girls’ enrolment rates lower still (although in many countries women play the dominant role in smallholder production), and rural children typically spend less years in education in than their urban counterparts. Expanding access to education remains a key challenge.
Farmer training and advisory services also need transformation. It is no longer adequate to ‘extend’ messages or to ‘demonstrate’ technologies and practices, because the challenge farmers face is no longer simply one of ‘adoption’. Today, rural advisory services (RAS) need to enable farmers develop a broader range of skills: they “are about strengthening capacities, empowering rural people, and promoting innovations. RAS support people to obtain skills and information, and to address challenges so as to improve their livelihoods and well-being.” They still need to disseminate information, not only about technologies, but also about markets, inputs and financial services; in addition they need to assist them to develop their farming, environmental and management skills, better deal with risk, access markets on more favourable terms, and interact more effectively with the private sector, research, education, and government.
What role can the private sector play in all this? Arguably, a somewhat narrow one, limited to promoting a relatively narrow range of technical skills (such as fertilizer use, or production of specific crops). This leaves governments with a central role in enabling rural people to develop the life skills and, increasingly, the analytical skills they need for sustainable agricultural intensification. NGOs too can play a key role in many countries, though typically they provide intensive approaches that may work well in limited contexts, but which are not easily up-scalable. Farmer-to-farmer learning approaches, such as farmers field schools, and farmer-centred approaches, built around farmers’ own organizations, are also a key element of the equation and are likely to become only more so. And the international development community, which has given little attention to these issues in recent years, needs to come back to the table and increase its support for this critical agenda.
References
Acker, D. and Gasperini, L. 2009 “Education for Rural People: the role of education, training and capacity building in poverty reduction and food security” Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2011 “Save and grow: a policymaker’s guide to the sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production”. Rome. FAO
Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services; http://www.g-fras.org/en/about-us/about-us
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) 2010 “Rural Poverty Report 2011: New realities, new challenges: new opportunities for tomorrow’s generation”. Rome. IFAD
______
Cite article as: Heinemann, E., (2011) ‘TVET, Agricultural Development and Rural Poverty Reduction’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 61-64, available: http://www.norrag.org
______
>>Back to full contents of NORRAG NEWS 46.
>>Download the full issue of NORRAG NEWS 46 in pdf.
Network for Policy Research, Review and Advice on Education and Training (NORRAG): a focus and a forum for the analysis of aid in international education, training and development policy
Not registered with NORRAG? Stay connected with education and development issues.