Practical Triple Bottom Line Development

Part 3

Feeding Africa sustainably depends on …

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…small farmers

For the last 50 years African rural economic development has been stagnant. Development agencies are trying to help Africa feed itself by introducing “modern agriculture”

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High tech mechanized farming is capital intensive, with high productivity and a low labor component

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But Africa has little capital and millions of unemployed people eager to work

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Small farms are capable of employing a great sum of people but subsistence farmers in Africa cannot

compete in the global market

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GSR’s solution is small farms working together as marketing cooperatives

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Small farm holders more productively utilize the land

and use more marginal land productively, when compared with large scale plantation

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smallholders understand the long-term importance of their land as a productive asset, they tend to treat the land

better from an environmental management standpoint

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This sustainability is enhanced by biodiversity—most smallholders raise many plant species, often ones in

complementary relationships

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The small farm holder model is far more socially coherent and provide more mutual assistance and “sense of community”

than plantation worker model—that is, more family values and village solidarity, whereas plantations are plagued with

prostitution, substance abuse, STDs and many other social ills derived from rapid displacement from traditional village life

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Because of their small size and high crop diversity, smallholders are more flexible producers, able to “turn on a dime” by quickly

adapting to changing crops as the market shifts in terms of demand; by contrast large scale farms are tied to technologies

of scale that are not flexible, like expensive machinery dedicated to a single crop—this in turn means small farm

holders are less often caught in the situation of crops becoming too cheap to harvest.

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Small farm cooperatives actually enjoy a significant price advantage over mechanized

plantations

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GSR cooperatives stress building local economies. Only surpluses are exported.

This results in social stability, phenomenal local economic growth and massive surpluses for export.

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Once the local self reliant communities get this jump start,

their social stability and sustained economic growth is

impressive

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