Mr. Chairman,

It is a pleasure for me to address this Conference on behalf of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers. Our federation, IFAP, represents farmers at the global level. Currently it has in membership 100 national farmers’ organizations from 71 countries, the majority of which are from developing countries. Through its global network, IFAP brings together over 500 million farmers worldwide.

Mr. Chairman, I am a farmer in Kenya and the leader of our Apex farmers organization - the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers (KENFAP). The organization was registered in 1947 as Kenya National Farmers Union (KNFU). It has been undergoing reform the last three years that led to the change of name effective from November 2002.

Kenya had a thriving agriculture before the start of implementation of the SAPs in 1978. He also had a well-organized and functional agricultural cooperatives but the reforms we have gone through since 1978 led to total collapse of the agricultural sectors and farmers institutions such as the cooperatives.

I have the privilege of being elected Chairman of the Kenya Federation of Agricultural Producers, and Chairman of the East-African Farmers’ Union. However, today, I speak to you as Vice-President of IFAP on a critical subject for our farmers – food security.

Food security means having access to a sufficient quantity of food to sustain life and work. Food needs to be available in the right place at the right time, and be affordable to the local people. It also needs to be the ‘culturally-appropriate’ food that we eat.

All nations have a duty to ensure that their people are not hungry. Access to food is the most important human right, for it means the right to life itself.

So why are 800 million people in the world still hungry?

Why is it that progress in the implementation of resolutions and declarations in FAO and UN meetings to reduce the number of hungry people by half by 2015 so far behind schedule?

The answer, Mr. Chairman, is because agriculture is being neglected. There is a large gap between the speeches of our statesmen and the reality on the ground.

Three quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas, drawing their livelihoods from agriculture and other rural activities. Yet only 12 per cent of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) goes to agriculture. Only 9 per cent of World Bank loans go to support agriculture. National governments in developing countries have also reduced their priorities for agriculture in national budgets over the last 10 years. This is exactly the wrong policy to achieve food security

This neglect of agriculture must be reversed if there is to be any chance of eliminating hunger and poverty, or of meeting any of the goals of the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg last year.


Fortunately, there are some hopeful signs that agriculture will be receiving more attention in the future from donors, international institutions and national governments.

- Agriculture was included as one of the five priority sectors in the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

- Food security considerations are on the agenda of the current WTO negotiations for the first time.

- Some development agencies, such as CIDA in Canada are giving more focus to agricultural development. This revival in good intentions towards agriculture now needs to be translated into meaningful programs on the ground.

What sort of programs are we looking for on the ground? As farmers, we will be increasing our efforts to achieve at least three meaningful actions on the ground.

The first is to secure access to resources, land and water, particularly for our women farmers in Africa. In most of the developing countries, it is often farm families that are affected most by hunger. If they do not have the means to produce food for themselves, they will go hungry.

At the international level, IFAP is working with FAO, IFAD and others in the International Land Coalition to ensure that farmers have title to their land. However, this is a battle that will have to be won at the community, district and national levels, as well as at the international level. My national organisation, KEFAP, is making progress with the Kenyan government on these issues.

Without secure access to resources, a farmer does not have the necessary incentive to invest in his land, and is unable to look forward to a sustainable long-term future. Providing land titles is not a huge expense for governments, but it provides a strong motivation to family farmers.

The second key element in achieving food security is to have access to appropriate inputs and support services. Farmers need access to good-quality seeds, fertilisers, credit and other inputs at prices that they can afford. These inputs should be accompanied by research, extension and training. In all the major industrialised countries that today are experiencing food surpluses, farmers have benefited from a strong network of agricultural schools, colleges and research institutes to support them. However, such networks are sadly lacking in developing countries.

Farmers are therefore very concerned about the extent to which governments are using cost-recovery or privatisation of services to farmers. In Africa, our national agricultural research centres are seriously under-funded; our farm extension services and veterinary inspection services have all but been abolished. Also none of our countries has a food standards agency.

Public investment must be increased in research, extension, education and training. Farmer’ organisations must also strengthen cooperation with the industry too. And in this respect, I welcome very much this initiative of the International Fertiliser Industry Association (IFA) with FAO to promote sustainable fertilisation. We would like to work more with your association on soil fertility programs for farmers.

Mr. Chairman, most farmers seek the possibility to go beyond producing food only for their families, and enter the commercial market. However, in developing countries, markets are not well organised and infrastructure is lacking. Too often, government finds it easier to import cheap food surpluses from industrialised countries to feed urban populations than to develop local agriculture. Again, this is not a sustainable situation. Local poverty, hunger and exclusion are not only a human tragedy, but they are a potentially explosive social and political mixture. The new President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, understood this well when he appointed a farmer as his new minister of agriculture, and set achieving food security as a top priority for his administration.

Thus the third key element in achieving food security is access to markets. For farmers this means better rural infrastructure – roads, sanitation, electrification, irrigation systems, communications.


It also means markets that function correctly. Too often, farmers in developing countries are faced with a situation in which one or a few moneyed businessmen or landowners control the basic economic resources and services needed by farmers. They extend credit for production, subsistence and emergencies, often at very high interest rates, and for which they exact a commitment on the part of the farmers to sell their crops to them at harvest time, with the valuation and pricing at the sole discretion of the creditor. They are often the sole provides of fertilizer and other inputs to farmers, often with very high mark-ups. They control transport facilities to and from the locality; they own local convenience stores, hardware and other shops from which farmers get their basic needs.


Many farmers continue to be trapped into this feudal/paternalistic system which is perhaps more insidious that what any big multinational company can set up at the micro level. Only by building roads and communication facilities will it be possible to weaken the control of these micro-monopolists on small farming communities. Rural markets become more competitive with the removal of the barriers to entry.


However, as we move up the marketing chain, there is a discernable increase in concentration in market power. Only a handful of firms control the retail food distribution, or food manufacturing sectors worldwide [Walmark, Carrefour, Ahold for retailing; Unilever, Nestle, Danone, Kraft for food manufacturing; Cargill, Conagra, ADM, in the grains and livestock markets]


As industrial concentration at the global level intensifies, many small farmers in developing countries will invariably become victims if precautionary measures are not put in place. Because these farmers are disorganized and scattered, their weak market power will make them easily vulnerable to attempts by the large firms to control seed supply, to price products at high rates, corner markets, etc. In most cases, the small farmers end up absorbing most of the cost of market inefficiencies and distortions, whether these are caused by local or foreign cartels.


It is thus imperative that farmers organise themselves in the market. More than ever farmers need support to strengthen their marketing structures, so that they can face globalisation. The World Bank, IMF and the WTO should not therefore be attacking these institutions, but should rather be helping farmers to strengthen them.


A much greater effort needs to be made to help small farmers to develop their local markets. This includes protection from the dumping of surpluses from other countries into the markets of developing countries. It also includes concrete action to make good on the promises for technical assistance that was promised in the last Round of WTO of negotiations, but that is not yet forthcoming.


But, Mr. Chairman, building up farmers’ capacity for marketing is only part of the solution. The policy context is also a critical factor in successfully achieving food security. Thus farmers also need to strengthen their capacity for participating effectively in the development process, and in advocacy work.


IFAP sees capacity-building of stakeholder constituencies as critical to the success of implementing any strategy to achieve eradication of hunger and poverty. Farmer participation through water user group, or landcare committees, or participatory processes in drawing up PRSPs with the World Bank and ministries of finance, is also a critical element for success. More donor assistance therefore needs to be directed to people-centred development, helping farmers to be active participants in the development process through their farmers’ organisations.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to emphasis that to achieve food security in developing countries, problems such as insecurity and HIV/AIDS must be addressed by all partners in development. Mr. Chairman, the role of Civil Society Organizations such as farmers’ organizations is very clear to all of us. International Agreements such as the Cotonou Agreement are clear and define the role for the CSO. International conferences such as the FAO World Food Summit five years later involved CSO in the participation and in the implementation of the final declarations. The Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development also involved CSO and especially farmers’ organizations. The opening address by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, not only welcomed CSO in the family of Nations but also clearly stated that the sustainable development agenda was not going to be possible without fully involving CSO.


Mr. Chairman, “food security” means “farmer security”. To achieve this we must combine all our efforts. We welcome the holding of this Conference by FAO and IFA, and hope that it leads to closer partnerships at field level to improve the livelihoods of millions of small farmers throughout the world. By working together, we will be able to make a difference. For, Mr. Chairman, working together, is working well.