21 September 2023
By: Lloyd Phillips
A survey of 800 farmers worldwide by Bayer Crop Science has highlighted a range of needs to help them achieve the sustainability goals consumers and governments expect.
Most farmers across the world want to produce sufficient, safe, affordable and healthy food using systems that help to meet climate change and other sustainability goals and consumer requirements.
However, they say it is unrealistic to expect them to achieve this overnight. Furthermore, it requires understanding, mutual respect and support from consumers and authorities.
This emerged during an in-person and virtual media and stakeholder day hosted on 21 September by Bayer Crop Science in Mannheim, Germany. It came after Bayer recently completed its Farmer Voice survey of 800 farmers across the world. Four of these farmers were among the day’s panellists, and they represented all scales and types of production.
Scott Henry, who farms in the US, says his operation already uses many of the latest crop production technologies aimed at trying to balance cost-efficiencies, economic and environmental sustainability and consumer needs. Yet, he and his family believe they still need to do much more if their farming business is to fully achieve this balance.
“A big challenge for many farmers is that many older, more conventional crop-production products are still cheaper than many of the more sustainable products, technologies and processes becoming available,” he says.
“Hopefully this will change. In the meantime, however, farmers can take a systematic approach to gradually changing over from older, less sustainable to newer, more sustainable practices.
“It is important, though, that this changeover is happening, progressing on every farm.”
Nigerian farmer Onyaole Koku says even Africa’s numerous small-scale and often resource-poor farmers are open to farming more sustainably. The challenge, however, is that they require solutions and support that are often significantly different than those developed for larger-scale, more advanced and better-resourced farmers elsewhere.
“To these African farmers, advanced technologies and systems are like Star Wars stuff,” she says. “They are already using things like no-till, but they need to be empowered with tailormade resources, skills and products to help them even more with implementing regenerative practices.”
She says peer-to-peer knowledge transfer is also hugely important for Africa’s small-scale farmers. This must extend across all scales and types of production and cover multiple collaborators from local to international levels. Helpful advice, which is increasingly accessible via even the simplest digital communications platforms, will help these farmers to succeed.
Argentinian farmer Pedro Vigneau urges consumers, governments and farmers everywhere to start engaging more constructively instead of taking combative stances. Such constructive engagements should include farmers educating consumers about the challenges they face and showcasing their willingness – including current and planned efforts – to become more sustainable.
In turn, says Vigneau, governments and consumers should understand that achieving sustainability is a gradual, difficult, often costly and long-term process for farmers, but one that most of them are willing to undertake.
“We also need to be suitably paid by our markets for the more sustainable methods and products we use. Farmers need to be incentivised and supported by getting higher prices for their more sustainably produced products,” he says.
