Challenges Facing Small Farmers
THE SMALL FARMER:
One of the main issues affecting the agriculture sector in emerging and developing countries is the fragmenting nature of land ownership, where individual farmers hold small amounts of land, often less than 2 hectares, which is simply not profitable. There is a direct relation between size of land owned and profitability. In developed countries like the US and Australia, large scale mechanized farming allows individual farmers to be profitable, taking advantage of economies of scale. More than 50% of the developing world is suffering from the problems that result from fragmented landownership. Below are some key issues and data points regarding farmers in India, but these issues are similar throughout Africa and other developing countries. From an economic and social perspective, improving productivity and income for small farmers has the potential to significantly improve developing economies, as majority of their populations are involved in Agriculture.
Most farmers in India hold less than 2 hectares of land. However, there is a distinct socio-economic difference between farmers that own between 1-2 hectares of land, known as Small Holding Farmers (SHF), and farmers owning less than 1 hectare, known as Marginal Small Holding Farmers (MSHF). This includes those farming crops as well as farmers involved in the dairy, poultry, and livestock industries. About 15% of the total farming population is considered SHF, and own 27% of the land, while 70% is considered MSHF, yet hold only 23% of the land. An average SHF holds about 1.42 hectares of land, while an average MSHF holds about 0.39 hectares of land, highlighting the fragmented nature of agricultural landholding in India.
To put this in perspective, farmers in India constitute 47% of the working population. According to the World Bank, the employment to population ratio is 52%, and the population of India is 1.339 billion, which gives us a workforce of 696 million, and a farming population of 327 million. According to the Indian government, SHF and Marginal SHF form 85% of this, around 278 million people, with 229 million of this amount classified as Marginal SHF. The more alarming fact is that Marginal SHF household consumption exceeds income, with this deficit averaging Rs 550-1500 ($7.6 - $21) per month in most parts of the country, including three of the largest states, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. The economic and social implications are simply staggering; Marginal SHF in India are on average suffering $1.74 to $4.8 billion per month in losses. This is a multifaceted problem that stems from several issues.
While Aquaponics may not be able to help all small farmers, it does have many unrealized social benefits. Given knowledge, training, financing, and access to distribution, small farmers can build and operate their own Aquaponic farms on existing small parcels of land. They will no longer be vulnerable to rainfall, seasonality, or extreme pricing volatility, and will benefit from significantly higher, stable income, and, very importantly, the ability to grow their income through expansion.
Land ownership and income:According to a report by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, ‘Income Generation and Inequality in India's Agricultural Sector’, “land ownership is the most important determinant of income”. Several other reports suggest there is a direct correlation with land ownership and income, which makes the focus on Marginal SHF increasingly important in a country combating poverty that has seen a steady decline in average land ownership size since 1970. With the average size of a Marginal SHF being 0.39 hectare, Marginal SHF face a disadvantage at every step, from procuring supplies, to selling their produce, as they do not have the bargaining or purchasing power that larger farmers have.
The Small Farmer Debt Trap:Small farmers are constantly facing cash flow problems, and acquiring inputs such as seed, fertilizer, pesticide, etc becomes challenging without access to credit. In farming, water is the most important, and the largest input, making water availability a serious concern for all farmers, large and small. Of India’s 140 million hectares under cultivation, only 66 million hectares is irrigated, majority of this is through wells, followed by canals. Irrigated land has higher output as it can be double and triple cropped, while being less vulnerable to rainfall and drought. This gives farmers more stable incomes than farmers on non irrigated land, who wholly depend on rainfall and cannot farm during drought years.
About 48% of irrigated land is owned by SHF and Marginal SHF, with majority of this is owned by SHF. Marginal SHF largely live on unirrigated land that is highly vulnerable to rainfall irregularities which results in unstable income. With these farmers unable to purchase inputs such as fertilizer, pesticide, etc this leads to further unstable income. Banks will not lend to rainfall dependant Marginal SHF, so they often resort to informal lending from moneylenders at unsustainably high interest rates to cover these losses, leaving them in a debt trap. This debt trap often results in loss of land and/or selling of their land to cover their debts. With little education and skills outside of the farm, these farmers often head to cities to look for work, where they end up forced to live in slums with little opportunity to improve their lives. For others its more unfortunate: unsustainable debt is often the root cause of farmer suicides in India, which has claimed over 300,000 lives in the past two decades.
Tragedy of the commons:The government has made many attempts to help the irrigation problem by incentivizing the digging of wells, which has had other implications, such as in Bangalore where excessive digging of boreholes to supply Bangalore’s residential population lowered the water table to depths that were cost prohibitive to the average farmer. Bangalore’s population has more than doubled since 2001, from 5.7 million to over 11 million today. This has exacerbated the water supply infrastructure of the existing city, forcing most of Bangalore’s new residential development to be supplied via water tankers, which travel from increasingly further distances each year. The water table has dropped from 350m to 1600m in 12 years in some areas.
Climate change has been taking an equally devastating effect on the water situation of the region. Due to inconsistent rainfall (every year since 2012 has been a drought), much of the surrounding land has become unprofitable for Marginal SHF. Those lucky enough to be close to the city have sold their land to developers, with those further outside the city forced to rely on growing less water intensive crops. Inconsistent rainfall has affected farmers in both urban and rural areas equally, though in rural areas one could argue the impact is greater as there are little opportunities for farmers to sell their land or move on to another occupation.
The Aquaponics SolutionIn urban and semi urban areas that have been negatively affected so drastically in such a short period of time, Aquaponics presents a viable solution. These areas allow Marginal SHF to take advantage of their proximity to urban centers by growing higher margin crops that, with the proper access to distribution, can significantly increase their income.
On average, a couple can manage a 0.05-0.07 hectare (500-700 sqm) aquaponic greenhouse with no additional help. This is much less than the 0.39 hectare (3900 sqm) owned by an average Marginal SHF suffering losses. Similarly, a 500 sqm aquaponic greenhouse can produce the output of 1 hectare of unirrigated land for certain crops annually. Unlike in soil farming, this would be harvested weekly in consistent quantities across 12 months of the year, resulting in stable income. This allows the Marginal SHF to have a higher output than a larger farmer, using a fraction of their land. With a lower cost of production and higher output, this could easily double or even triple their income on their existing land with minor capital investment. Very importantly, this would be stabilized, leverageable income that is not vulnerable to rainfall or drought.