What it is, why it’s important and what coffee has to do with it?
We struggled to find a definition of sustainable smallholder agriculture that fits the lens through which Falcon views the world, so we constructed our own:
It is the ability of farms to produce food indefinitely, through the synthesis of environmental stewardship, economic productivity and the promotion of prosperous farming communities.
According to the Fairtrade Foundation, an estimated 12,5 million smallholder farmers produce up to 80% of the world’s coffee. The majority of coffee producing countries fall into at least one of the poverty traps of in/post conflict, poor governance, land-locked with poor neighbours or the mineral wealth trap. Many lack personal security and food security. Most have limited access to credit, healthcare, education or markets. Our coffee farmers are a subset of the estimated 500 million smallholder farmers that produce 70% of the world’s staple food crops. (UN Food and Agricultural Organisation). These farmers share the same challenges and vulnerabilities. It is only their crops that differ.
So if coffee is a non-essential food crop, why do we think it has a material role to play in the future of global security and environmental stewardship?
Coffee is the greatest retail success story in the global food and beverage industry of our time. The annual value of the retail industry currently exceeds $300 billion. It is also an industry that recognises that poverty and climate change threaten the supply of the raw material that it relies on. Without investment, scientific research and the radical overhaul of supply chains, coffee faces a bleak future of disappearing origins, diminished quality and eventual extinction.
There is work underway across the coffee world to combat the complex array of threats and challenges to building a secure future for the coffee farming communities, the topsoil, water and biodiversity they steward and the industry as a whole. This work is not about coffee. It is about food security, access to credit, training, markets and other resources and about climate change resilience. This work we do, what we learn and the successes we achieve can benefit every smallholder farming community, regardless of where they live and what they farm.
It is proven that investing in sustainable agriculture itself increases yield production.
The largest study examining smallholder sustainable agriculture in poor countries analysed 286 projects covering 37 million hectares (3 per cent of the cultivated area in developing countries) in 57 countries. The study found that sustainable agriculture resulted in increased average crop yields of 79% in 12.6 million farms.25 Some 4.42 million cereal-growing small farmers reaped 73% higher production, providing an additional 1.7 tonnes per household per year. Some 146,000 farmers growing potato, sweet potato, and cassava achieved 150 % higher production on 542,000 hectares.[i] Some 4.42 million cereal-growing small farmers reaped 73% higher production, providing an additional 1.7 tonnes per household per year. Some 146,000 farmers growing potato, sweet potato, and cassava achieved 150 % higher production on 542,000 hectares. This database of 286 projects was re-analysed by UNCTAD and UNEP to produce a summary of the impacts in 114 projects throughout Africa. It found that sustainable agriculture improved crop yields by an average of 116% for all African projects and 128% for projects in East Africa.[ii]
Climate impact
Non sustainable practice, if used on a large scale, will have an enormously negative, potentially irreversible impact on both environment and populations.
The UNEP has stated that climate change, water scarcity, high energy prices, desertification, land degradation (such as saline soils), and cropland losses due to biofuels, timber, expanding cities and other factors, will make it harder for humanity to feed itself. With populations projected to rise from 6.7 to 9.2 billion by 2050, producers will be very challenged to meet demand for food and biofuels.[iii]
The IPCC reports that high-input farming, largely based on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, accounts for an estimated 15% of global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. At the same time climate change is projected to have a devastating impact on food production and food security. The IPCC says yields from rain-fed farming in some African countries could fall by up to 50% by 2020, and by up to 30% in some central and South Asian countries by 2050. [iv]
Global modelling suggests sustainable agriculture could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. [v] To achieve this the UNEP advocates a switch to sustainable agriculture. It also recommends reducing large food losses in the field in poor countries, recycling waste in the food chain, and finding alternatives for animal feed (eg from plant waste or fish discard). Together, it is predicted that these changes could feed an additional three billion people by 2050.[vi]
It is believed that sustainable agriculture can mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and offers a genuinely low GHG emission alternative, and that is has huge potential to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and that organic agriculture can reduce GHG emissions because it requires 25-50% less energy compared to conventional chemical-based agriculture.[vii]
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We believe that sustainable smallholder agriculture:
– is the most efficient and socially just way to increase productivity, resilience to climate change, household income, job creation, regeneration of land and other natural resources, and improvements in household food security.
– a key solution to tackling hunger, as well as addressing poverty and climate change issues.
– is underwritten by the moral obligation to pursue the goal of sustainability. SA is thought to be the system that will provide a path to that goal.
– a system that that is proven to sustain the economic viability of multi-generational, family-owned farming operations.
– a practical method for enhancing the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.
– is the effort to solve agricultural and natural resource problems through collaborative partnerships.
– creates and preserves a circular value system of food production and exchange.
– promotes the preservation of fair relationships and improved quality of life for all parties within the value circle.
– is particularly well-suited to poor, remote or marginalised communities.
– combines indigenous knowledge, traditional methods, innovation and natural science, aimed at ensuring access to healthy and nutritious food throughout the year by relying on local renewable resources.
– relies on the adaptation and cycles of harmonious processes of local biodiversity.
– aims to maintain healthy soils while it resists and demotes the use of non-renewable / unsustainable inputs, particularly environmentally harmful ones.
– encompasses approaches such as agro-ecology, low external input, agro-forestry, organic agriculture, integrated crop and pest management and water harvesting in dry land areas.
– an integrated system of plant (and animal) production practices that have site-specific applications that will over time satisfy large scale food needs.
“Inherent in this definition is the idea that sustainability must be extended not only globally but indefinitely in time and to all living organisms including humans” – Adapted from – An Ecological Definition of Sustainable Agriculture, by Professor Stephen R. Gliessman and IFOAM’s definition of organic agriculture.
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[i] Pretty, J et al (2006) Resource-conserving agriculture increases yields in developing countries, Environmental
Science and Technology (Policy Analysis)
[ii] UNCTAD/UNEP (2008) Organic agriculture and food security in Africa, New York: United Nations
[iii] UNEP (2009) The environmental food crisis & UN Population Division (2008) United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
[iv] IPCC (2008) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, Geneva: IPCC
[v] Badgley, C et al (2007) Organic agriculture and the global food supply, Renewable agriculture and food systems, Cambridge University Press
[vi] UNEP (2009) The environmental food crisis, Nairobi:UNEP,
[vii] Niggli, U et al (2009) LowGreenhouse gas agriculture,mitigation and adaptation potential of sustainable farming systems, Rome
