Agroecological Intensification of Smallholder Farming - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 103

Chapter 4
Agroecological
Intensification of
Smallholder Farming
Rebecca Nelson and Richard Coe
Introduction
The food price crisis of 2007 focused the attention of scientists, policy bodies, activists,
and corporations on the precarious state of global food production systems. Major jour-
nals have dedicated special issues to food security. Science magazine dedicated a spe-
cial issue to the subject of food security on February 12, 2010, and Nature 's special issue
of July 28, 2010 asked “Can Science Feed the World?” The Economist recently featured
cover stories on food security several times, and in 2011 Foreign Policy had a first-ever
“food issue” titled “Inside the Geopolitics of a Hungry Planet.” The problems that
threaten the productivity and stability of agriculture are hardly new, however; climate
challenges, energy prices, and degrading agrobiological resources have long afflicted
smallholder farmers.
Agricultural systems are required not only to produce food, but also to provide live-
lihoods for millions of resource-limited smallholder farmers. In most countries, the
majority of people participate in agriculture (World Bank 2007). Most of the poorest
billion people (70 percent) rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture, as the
major use of managed land globally, also has to contribute to the maintenance of ecosys-
tems and the provision of ecosystem services. Agricultural systems are failing on a grand
scale, however, and ecosystem services are in critical decline (Millenium Ecosystems
Assessment 2005). In addition, nearly a billion people are currently undernourished,
and the global population is expected to increase from seven to nine billion by 2050
(Bongaarts 2009).
While there is a general consensus that there is a need to increase food production
and improve rural livelihoods without further undermining the earth's productive