Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
16 Sustainable
Intensification of
Smallholder Agriculture
Rattan Lal and Bobby A. Stewart
CONTENTS
16.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 385
16.2 Sustainable Intensification ............................................................................ 386
16.3 Issues of Smallholder Farming ..................................................................... 387
16.4 Payments for Ecosystem Services ................................................................ 388
16.5 Technological Options for Sustainable Intensification of Smallholder
Agriculture .................................................................................................... 388
16.6 Research and Development Priorities ........................................................... 390
16.7 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 391
References .............................................................................................................. 392
16.1 INTRODUCTION
There are about 500 million small farms worldwide, and an estimated 2 billion
people depend on them for their livelihood and well-being. Furthermore, 80% of
the food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are produced on small farms
(International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD] 2011; United Nations
Environment Programme [UNEP]/IFAD 2013). Alleviating poverty of smallholder
farmers is the key to lifting more than 1 billion people out of poverty (UNEP 2013).
Therefore, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), of reducing poverty and food
insecurity (MDG 2000) and sustainable development, cannot be realized without
improving the productivity and sustainability of smallholder farms. However, agro-
nomic productivity and the well-being of smallholder farms are being undermined
by soil degradation, decline in ecosystem functions and services, poor infrastruc-
ture, and weak institutional support. While, collectively, smallholder farmers have
wealth of traditional knowledge and practical solutions for addressing site-speciic
constraints, most have neither the access nor the capacity to avail the benefits of
modern technologies. For example, adoption of no-till (NT) farming and conser-
vation agriculture (CA) is most relevant to improving productivity of smallholder
farms. Despite the strong adoption of NT farming to the extent of 125 million hect-
are (Mha) worldwide (Friedrich et al. 2012), the adoption by smallholders has lagged
behind because of several constraints (Lal 2007). Yet the strategy is to promote
385
 
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