With food insecurity rising worldwide and nutrition-related illnesses proliferating, countries want to encourage healthier eating. But how can they ensure people are able to buy and prepare diverse, nutritious foods when farmers produce so little of them? National agricultural policies are generally designed to support the cultivation of staple grains such as corn and rice, some oils, and sugar. A recent paper shows that 1/3 of global farms cultivated maize and 1/5 cultivated wheat alone! These foods feed the world amply, and cheaply, but some in the form of highly processed foods.
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Another issue is the significant loss and waste of perishable fruits and vegetables, meat and dairy products because of inadequate food storage, poor roads, and people’s lack of access to modes of preserving food for long-term storage. Such inefficiencies along the food supply chain drive up the cost and limit the supply of nutritious, fresh foods in rural and urban areas alike. In Ethiopia for example, perishable foods such as eggs, dairy, and fish are 8-10 times more expensive than starchy staple calories due to supply constraints.
Turning around such entrenched food systems may seem daunting. But it can be done, beginning at the grass-roots level by improving community-based agriculture extension programs. Extension workers are “door-to-door” or farm-to-farm advisers who translate agriculture science into practical applications for farmers. They help solve problems and provide the training and technology farmers need to improve their operations profitably. Extensionists, as they are called, can also be critical mediators in times of natural disasters or outbreaks of disease among livestock.
A study done in 2014 by the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services estimated there are 1,059,528 extension agents worldwide, but that could be an underestimate. The range of extension agents in each country varies, with some countries having very few—Barbados has 6—whereas other countries have more—China has 615,000. But, of course, that depends on the number of farmers in the country and how many people each extension agent serves.
Ideally, extensionists can steer farmers toward cultivating more nutritious foods and help them do so profitably. They can guide farmers to save heirloom seeds and improve agronomic practices to produce nutritious crops such as horticulture and raising poultry and goats. They can provide training to farmer families on food preparation and nutrition. They can help farmers adopt cultivation and fertilization practices that protect the environment, limit greenhouse-gas emissions, and help store carbon in the soil. And last, they can advise on post-harvest and storage technologies to minimize food loss on farms.
However, in many countries, they lack the training, tools, transportation, and communication tools to reach farmers. Nutrition training provided to extension agents at agricultural technical schools and universities is ineffective and inadequate, which impedes the ability of agents to identify nutritional needs and provide advice or solutions. They also do not have tools to share with communities nor the training to raise awareness of nutrition as a priority.
In many countries, extensionists also lack the tools that would help them work efficiently with more farmers. For example, in some parts of rural Africa, extension agents do not have mobile phones (or top-ups) to contact farmers about real-time issues like food prices in regional markets or motorbikes to reach far-flung communities. With COVID-19, many extensionists cannot get out to the field, so in places like China and Iran, extensionists are using smartphones and the radio to communicate market information and technical support along with public health safety. Farm Radio International is working with 1,000 stations in Africa to help get out information through extension agents.
It starts at the university level—improving extension curricula in universities or after high-school technical training schools. Investments in refresher certification programs for extension agents are needed in most places globally as technologies change and the latest science and technological know-how on agronomy, nutrition, and climate science tools become available. Continual updates to training modules of extension agents such as the New Extensionist Nutrition Learning Kit developed in Rwanda can strengthen training in nutrition within agriculture. Many local non-governmental organizations can provide this training along with the Food and Agriculture Organization in partnership with Ministries of Agriculture.
Techniques employed by extension agents such as peer-to-peer engagement through model farmers, community champions using a “train-the-trainer” approach, or the “walk-and-talk” methodology, wherein agents interact with client farmers through hands-on demonstrations. One example could be forest walks with farmers. Extension agents could teach farmers how to harvest wild, nutrient-dense foods, followed by demonstrations in preparing and incorporating the food into conventional dishes. The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) has a program, The Last Mile, which is expected to engage 15,000 extension agents in 18 countries to provide business and market-oriented skills to over 1.5 million smallholder farmers over the next five years.
Last, women extension agents should be promoted and empowered. Only 15% of extension agents are women, and only 5% of women farmers reap the benefits from extension services. Most extension services have traditionally targeted their resources and interventions towards male farmers. Women extensionists understand the needs and challenges of women farmers, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where 45% of the agriculture workforce is made up of women. They should be invested not only to jumpstart careers but also to support the many women working in food systems that ultimately feed us.
Investing in the people who best understand their communities' needs, be it health or agriculture community workers, is critical to address the challenges that farmers face. However, it won’t be enough to transform global agriculture. Governments, international organizations and the private sector must invest in infrastructure along the entire food supply chain to help farmers grow, store and deliver perishable, nutritious foods. In addition, there is a need to provide farmers the latest climate-smart technologies and tools that would allow them to be resilient when facing natural disasters and other shocks. Insurance and credit are also crucial as safety nets in these uncertain times. That said, face-to-face contact with people exchanging ideas, advice, and knowledge isn’t a bad place to start. So let’s reinvigorate and invest in extensionists.