Roger Leakey argues that multifunctional agriculture that simultaneously rehabilitates degraded farmlands and diversifies poor smallholder farming systems with indigenous species of trees may hold the key to boosting the incomes and livelihoods of Africa's rural poor.

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Redefining problems without solutions1

IN Global Development Goals - Leaving No-one Behind,2 the United Nations Association of the United Kingdom (UNA-UK) presents a collection of articles by eminent people in important positions around the globe. Although this report identifies progress towards some Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it recognises that success has been uneven. The principal achievement of the MDGs has been 'shaping the international discourse and driving the allocation of resources towards key global development goals ... with unprecedented political commitment and a strong consensus for tackling poverty and other development problems'.

The report itself, however, makes rather depressing reading as it seems we are not really making huge progress in our efforts to address the big issues facing the world, especially with regard to the gap between rich and poor. Instead of identifying solutions, this booklet redefines the problems and we go from eight Millennium Development Goals to 12 Post-2015 Development Goals. It seems we still haven't learnt that hunger, malnutrition, poverty and many of the other things on our 'to-do wish list' are part of a bigger and inter-related complex of issues. Why?

Maybe the problem is the size and complexity of all the interacting factors impacting on the lives of people scattered across numerous sectors and strata of society. The 'development' agenda is very multi-disciplinary and is partitioned between rural and urban situations. Furthermore, it requires some detailed understanding of biophysical and socioeconomic issues best addressed within holistic integrated rural development programmes. Unfortunately, we live in a world where problems and solutions are confined to disconnected silos. How to proceed is also influenced by the very different perspectives of people depending on whether they are looking from industrial or the least developed countries.

The poverty trap

Many of the problems arising from poverty in urban areas of least developed countries arise from inward migration from the countryside. Thus, central to making progress across all the development targets is tackling the root causes of land degradation and rural poverty.

The biggest issue in the rural tropics is that actual crop yields are well below the yield potential of modern varieties (this difference is called the yield gap). The reasons are complex. First, there is the crippling decline of soil fertility and a loss of agroecological functions. This results in land degradation and the loss of biodiversity above and below ground. This is exacerbated by persistent high levels of poverty, which deny farmers access to modern technologies such as fertilisers and other agricultural inputs. Consequently we have billions of marginalised people, many of them farming households, trapped in poverty and suffering from malnutrition, hunger and poor health. They also lack access to clean water, medical and other social services, and opportunities for education and employment - indeed all the things highlighted by the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Reversing the downward spiral and closing the yield gap

To try to get a better understanding of the issues in rural Africa, the staff of the World Agroforestry Centre asked farmers in Cameroon what they would like to see from agriculture. That was 20 years ago. Their illuminating and unexpected request was for the chance to reintroduce and cultivate the indigenous trees that used to provide fruits, nuts, leaves, medicinal products etc. when they were hunter-gatherers before the destruction of forests and woodlands.

Responding to this request has led to a multi-disciplinary innovation to address the complex set of issues driving the downward spiral to social deprivation in which land degradation drives poverty and poverty drives land degradation. This is the cause of the yield gap. To close this yield gap it is necessary to reverse the downward spiral by rehabilitating the land and creating a source of income.

In simple terms, this involves a three-step approach that can be easily adapted to the needs of different sets of biophysical and socioeconomic situations found in different locations. Rehabilitation involves restoring the ecological health of the farming system to address declining yields and to promote food security by ensuring the proper functioning of the agroecosystem (step 1); enriching these farming systems with the 'Trees of Life' that produce highly nutritious and marketable products that are also traditionally and culturally important (step 2); and finally promoting local cottage industries to create business and employment opportunities in value-adding that lift communities out of poverty (step 3).3

The second step mentioned above is in response to the request of the farmers. The World Agroforestry Centre, together with other research teams around the world, have developed a participatory approach engaging local communities to domesticate these 'Trees of Life' using appropriate village-based technologies that can be implemented by poor farmers in remote villages in the tropics. This process and how it addresses big global issues is the subject of my book Living with the Trees of Life - Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture.4 The trees are also of course long-lived perennial plants that sequester carbon in their biomass, in the soil and in other vegetation.

Albeit on a small scale (about 10,000 farmers in 500 villages), the results of this initiative in Cameroon have been spectacular and the integration of these trees in local farming systems has acted as a catalyst for the stimulation of social, economic and environmental benefits - a list too long to present here, except to say that lives are improving and the average income from community nurseries has risen from essentially nothing to $145, $16,000 and $28,350 after two, five and 10 years, respectively. One consequence is that some youths have decided to stay in the community rather than seek urban employment because they can see a future in their villages. The benefits address many of the constraints arising from the failure of modern agriculture - malnutrition, poverty and environmental degradation, including climate change. These are the same constraints responsible for the loss of productivity, the global food crisis and hunger in nearly half the world population.

The most innovative thing about this approach is that it is multi-disciplinary and based on the ideas and innovations implemented by poor African farmers. Now, 20 years after the start of the World Agroforestry Centre's study, it is becoming clear that these African farmers actually identified the key which unlocks the Rural Development Syndrome (relief from hunger, malnutrition, poverty, social injustice, environmental degradation and loss of ecological services).

I have presented '12 Principles for Better Food and More Food from Mature Perennial Agroecosystems'5 based on lessons drawn from the study. It involves the delivery of multifunctional agriculture to simultaneously rehabilitate degraded farmland and diversify poor smallholder farming systems with indigenous species that the farmers in Cameroon wanted. These principles point the way to integrated rural development through the sustainable intensification of tropical agriculture, rural business development for economic growth and enhanced well-being for billions of marginalised people.

Hopefully, 'a new Eden is around the corner' if we put our minds to it and put  our  money  where  our mouths are. This could be the 'kick-off' to a match where we start scoring many of the Post-2015 Development Goals.                                        

Prof Roger Leakey is Vice Chairman of the International Tree Foundation and author of Living with the Trees of Life - Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture. This article is reproduced from the website of the Institute of Science in Society (www.i-sis.org.uk).

Endnotes

1. This article describes one of many case studies and solutions to poverty presented recently in United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It Is Too Late - Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now for Food Security in a Changing Climate, Geneva, 2013, http://unctad.org/en/pages/PublicationWebflyer.aspx?publicationid=666. See Ho MW, 'Paradigm shift urgently needed in agriculture', Science in Society, 60.

2. Global Development Goals - Leaving No-one Behind, United Nations Association of the United Kingdom, London, 2013, http://www.una.org.uk/news/13/10/leaving-no-one-behind-una-uk-releases-major-development-publication

3. Leakey R, 'Three steps to bridging the yield gap', 14 January 2013, Global Food Security, http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/blog/index.php/2013/01/three-steps-to-bridging-the-yield-gap/

4. Leakey R, Living with the Trees of Life - Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture, CABI, Oxford, 2012, http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/index.php/2012/07/24/leakey-book-says-trees-of-life-could-nourish-the-planet-build-wealth/

5. Leakey R, '12 principles for better food and more food from mature perennial agroecosystems', FAO Workshop on Food Security, Rome, 2013, www.rogerleakey.com/new_publications

*Third World Resurgence No. 278, October 2013, pp 28-29