Andy Jarvis, of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, makes a presentation on ecosystem services in Colombia (photo credit: CIAT’s Neil Palmer).

Andy Jarvis, who leads a Decision and Policy Analysis Program and runs a ‘Linking Markets to Farmers’ blog at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), based in Colombia, blogged yesterday about an opinion piece published in the Guardian‘s ‘Poverty Matters’ blog on 14 October 2010 by Carlos Seré, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Kenya.

Jarvis agrees with Seré about the importance of smallholders in feeding the world and the opportunities they present to agribusiness.

Jarvis writes:
‘The director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Dr. Carlos Seré, has recently published an insightful in the Guardian titled “Backing smallholder farmers today could avert food crises tomorrow”.  Based on the rise of food crises and food riots in the developing world, Dr. Seré makes a strong case for using smallholder farming as a means to reduce poverty and hunger. The focus of his article is exactly what we in Markets [at CIAT’s Decision and Policy Analysis Program] are working on. Especially in the area of New Business Models (NBMs).

‘Even though smallholders form the “backbone” of world food production, they are a quite evidently an underutilized resource. They present new opportunities for agribusinesses to reduce supply risks as well as kick starting rural development. Due to his background, Dr. Seré discusses this issue within the prism of livestock farming. According to him, there needs to be an emphasis on collaboration and transparency between actors. With the right support, smallholders can be just as or even more efficient than large farmers. . . .’

Read the whole article at CIAT’s DAPA Markets ‘Linking Farmers to Markets’ blog: Growing interest in utilizing smallholder farmers, 14 October 2010.

Read Seré’s opinion piece at the Guardian‘s ‘Poverty Matters’ blog: Backing smallholder farmers today could avert food crisis tomorrow, 14 October 2010.

Watch a filmed interview of CIAT’s Andy Jarvis and another climate change expert, ILRI’s Phil Thornton, on the question, Will Giving Up Meat Save the Environment? produced at a climate change meeting held earlier this year in Nairobi, Kenya.