Abstract
The identified 169 targets in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) refer to agriculture and smallholder farmers’ contributions toward eliminating human hunger globally between 2015 and 2030. Notwithstanding the potential of smallholder farming, the sector encounters substantial challenges, limiting its competitiveness and sustainable capacity to reduce poverty. Worldwide, approximately 570 million small farms cultivate less than 2 hectares and comprise over two billion people operating with traditional or informal tenure, generally in risk-prone and marginal settings. These farmers and participants comprise approximately three-quarters (75%) of the underprivileged, hungry, and malnourished people. Smallholder farmers lack resources, information, technology, and capital assets, limiting their adaptive capacity to climate change and rendering them inadequate to achieve sustainable production, which can contribute to their decline.
Additionally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced food and nutrition security overall prospects by stalling efforts to achieve ‘Zero Hunger.’ This chapter examines major agricultural activities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, which provided data on its agricultural output, smallholder farms, climate action, and investment opportunities. The researchers implemented a qualitative method to gather data using interviews, observations, and documentary analysis. The findings suggest that innovative approaches implemented on a model smallholder family farm on 1.5 ha of agricultural land (equivalent to 3 football fields) in Trinidad could be a source of innovation for other farmers in different countries in the region. The chapter provides information and discussion on the innovative measures implemented in building resilience to climate change, which opens new avenues for a sustainable smallholder farming system in the region to achieve the SDGs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ADB (2020) ADB Trinidad & Tobago. History. http://www.adbtt.com/history/
Ahmad NM, Supaat DI, Wook I, Tagoranao MS, Rahman NAA (2018) Malaysians’ reluctance to work in local 3D sectors: a preliminary review. J Soc Sci Res:2411–9458. ISSN(p): 2413–6670. Special Issue. 4, pp: 220–223. https://arpgweb.com/journal/journal/7/special_issue, https://doi.org/10.32861/jssr.sp4.220.223
Akram N, Akram MW, Wang H, Mehmood A (2019) Does land tenure systems affect sustainable agricultural development? Sustainability 11:1–15. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11143925
Ali A, Abdulai A, Goetz R (2012) Impacts of tenancy arrangements on investment and efficiency: evidence from Pakistan. Agric Econ 43:85–97
Bitzer V, Glasbergen P (2015) Business-NGO partnerships in global value chains: part of the solution or part of the problem of sustainable change? Curr Opin Environ Sustain 12:35–40
Blandford D, Hassapoyannes K (2018) The role of agriculture in global GHG mitigation. In: OECD food, agriculture and fisheries papers. No. 112, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/da017ae2-en
Blanke MM (2015) Challenges of reducing fresh produce waste in Europe – from farm to fork – invited concept paper. Special edition on ‘waste of perishable food in agriculture’. Agriculture 5:389–399. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture5030389
CABA (2022) Strategy for increasing the contribution of MSMEs to CARICOM food security, export earnings, and the achievement of the SDGs. Internal document. About CABA – CABA Caribbean https://cabacaribbean.com › about-caba
Caine A, Dorward P, Clarkson G, Evans N, Canales CS (2015) Review of mobile applications that involve weather and climate information: their use and potential for smallholder farmers. In: Climatic change, agriculture and food security working paper no. 150. CCAFS, Copenhagen, Denmark
CARDI (2014) The agriculture policy Programme (APP) launched euro 8.6 million for regional agriculture. http://www.news.gov.tt/content/agriculture-policy-programme-app-launched-%E2%80%A6-euro-86-million-regional-agriculture#.YkvoOihKjrc
CARDI (2020) Enhancing farmers’ access to quality seeds and planting material. https://www.cardi.org/blog/enhancing-farmers-access-to-quality-seeds-and-planting-material/
CARICOM (2011) Regional food and nutrition security action plan (RFNSAP). https://issuu.com/caricomorg/docs/caricomregionalfoodandnutritionsecu/3
CARICOM (2014) Regional, international organisations in family farmers’ corner. https://caricom.org/regional-international-organisations-in-family-farmers-corner/
CARICOM (2020) CARICOM ’25 in 5′ Plan to tackle CARICOM food import bill. CARICOM TODAY. https://today.caricom.org. Agriculture
CARICOM (2021). Our work. Find out how CARICOM drives change for the community daily across the region. https://caricom.org/our-work/
CARICOM Today (2021) Farmer of the year award. https://today.caricom.org/tag/farmer-of-the-year-award/
Cassidy A, Srinivasan S, White B (2019) Generational transmission of smallholder farms in late capitalism. Can J Dev Stud/Revue canadienne d’études du développement 40(2):220–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2019.1592744
CEPAL (2018) Panorama Social de América Latina 2017. http://www.cepal.org/es/suscripciones
CTA (2020) A legacy of agricultural transformation. https://www.cta.int/en/CTALegacy
Cuervo H, Wyn J (2012) Young people making it work: continuity and change in rural places. Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, VIC
Dioula, B. M., Deret, H., Morel, J., du Vachat, E., Kiaya, V. (2013) Enhancing the role of smallholder farmers in achieving sustainable food and nutrition security. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/agn/pdf/Dioula_Paper_ICN2.pdf
Dyer G (1996) Output per acre and size of holding: the logic of peasant agriculture under semi-feudalism. J Peasant Stud 25(1):103–131
ECLAC, FAO & ALADI (2016) Food security, nutrition, and hunger eradication, elements for regional debate and cooperation, Santiago
Fan S, Brzeska J, Keyzer M, Halsema A (2013) From subsistence to profit: transforming smallholder farms. Food policy report. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896295582. www.global-challenges.com, www.advancedsciencenews.com
Fan S, Rue C (2020) The role of smallholder farms in a changing world. In: Gomez y Paloma S., Riesgo L., Louhichi K. (ed) The role of smallholder farms in food and nutrition security. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42148-9_2
FAO (2016) 52 profiles on agroecology: agroecology for sustainable agriculture in Trinidad: Rocrops Agrotec – an innovative model. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy. http://www.fao.org/3/a-br097e.pdf
FAO (2017) The future of food and agriculture – trends and challenges, Rome. https://www.fao.org/publications/fofa/en/
FAO et al. (2018) Overview of food and nutrition security in Latin America and the Caribbean. http://www.fao.org/3/CA2127ES/CA2127ES.pdf
FAO (2018a) The gender gap in land rights. https://www.fao.org/3/I8796EN/i8796en.pdf
FAO (2018b) The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security. http://www.fao.org/emergencies/resources/documents/resources-detail/en/c/1106859/
FAO (2019a) Current status of agriculture in the Caribbean and implications for agriculture policy and strategy. 2030 – food, agriculture and rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean, N°14. FAO, Santiago de Chile. 28p Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO
FAO (2019b) Biodiversity conservation and agroecological land restoration in productive landscapes of Trinidad and Tobago. https://www.thegef.org/sites/default/files/web-documents/10188_MFA_Trinidad_ReviewSheet.pdf
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO (2020) The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2020. Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9692en
Farmingfirst.org (2013) Placing agriculture at the heart of the sustainable development goals beyond 2015 – reflections on the high-level panel report. Farmingfirst.org
Friedmann H (1978) World market, state, and family farm: social bases of household production in the era of wage labor. Comp Stud Soc Hist 20(4):545–586
Fuglie K, Wang S (2012) Productivity growth in global agriculture shifting to developing countries. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). http://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/submitted-articles/productivity-growth-in-global-agriculture-shifting-to-developing-countries
Gollin D (2014) Smallholder agriculture in Africa. An overview and implications for policy. Working paper. http://pubs.iied.org/14640IIED/
Guardian (2013) Regional body honours T&T farmers. http://www.classifieds.guardian.co.tt/news/2013-03-25/regional-body-honours-tt-farmers
Harvey CA, Rakotobe ZL, Rao NS, Dave R, Razafimahatratra H, Rabarijohn RH, Rajaofara H, MacKinnon JL (2014) Extreme vulnerability of smallholder farmers to agricultural risks and climate change in Madagascar. Phil Trans R Soc B 369:20130089. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0089
Hitayezu P, Zegeye EW, Ortmann GF (2014) Some aspects of agricultural vulnerability to climate change in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, South Africa: a systematic review. J Hum Ecol 48:347–356
HLPE (2020) Impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition: developing effective policy responses to address the hunger and malnutrition pandemic HLPE issues paper chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ https://www.fao.org/3/cb1000en/cb1000en.pdf
Hong D (2015) On world food day, farmers should come first. One acre fund. Global Subcommittee Hearing: Food Security and Nutrition Programs in Africa
Hopkins CA, McKeown R (2002) Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit Version 2. http://www.esdtoolkit.org
IDB (2014) The next global breadbasket: how Latin America can feed the world: a call to action for addressing challenges & developing solutions. www.iadb.org/foodsecuritystudy
IFAD (2012) Sustainable smallholder agriculture: feeding the world, protecting the planet. Proceedings of the Governing Council Events in conjunction with the Thirty-fifth Session of IFAD’s Governing Council. https://webapps.ifad.org/members/gc/35/docs/GC35-Concept-note.pdf
IFAD (2015) IFAD Post-2015 policy brief 3: investing in smallholder family agriculture for global food security and nutrition, Rome, Italy. https:www.ifad.org/documents/10180/ad1f9fb1-b3f4-498b-bb82-077f4a8099cf
IFAD & UNEP (2013) Smallholders, food security, and the environment. http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/Portals/88/Mongolia%20WED/smallholders_report.pdf
IICA (2014) Regional and international organisations in family farmers’ corner. https://caricom.org/regional-international-organisations-in-family-farmers-corner/
IICA (2017) Family farming in the Americas: guiding principles and concepts of IICA’s technical cooperation. IICA, San Jose, Costa Rica. http://www.iica.int/sites/default/files/publications/files/2017/bve17038696i.pdf
IICA (2020) Protecting and recovering soils a key resource under threat. https://blog.iica.int/en/blog/protecting-and-recovering-soils-key-resource-under-threat
IICA (2021a) Trinidadian advocate of resilient agriculture to feed the Caribbean will receive the IICA “leaders of rurality” award. https://www.iica.int/en/press/news/trinidadian
IICA (2021b) Green climate fund and IICA signed an agreement to increase funding for climate resilience projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://iica.int/en/press/news/green-climate-fund-and-iica-sign-agreement-will-increase-funding-climate-resilience
Jamshidi O, Asadi A, Kalantari K, Azadi H (2019) Vulnerability to climate change of smallholder farmers in the Hamadan province, Iran. Clim Risk Manag 23:146–159
JSC (2017) Joint select committee on land and physical infrastructure. An inquiry into the allocation and utilization of state lands for food production. Third Report of Second Session 2016/2017, Eleventh Parliament. http://www.ttparliament.org/reports/p11-s2-J-20170620-LPI-r2.pdf
Kassam A, Friedrich T, Derpsch R (2019) Global spread of conservation agriculture. Int J Environ Stud 76(1):29–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207233.2018.1494927
Leporati et al (2014) Family farming in figures. In: Salcedo S, Guzmán L (eds) Family farming in Latin America and the Caribbean: policy recommendations, food, and agriculture organization of the UN (FAO). Santiago, Chile. http://www.fao.org/3/i3788s/i3788s.pdf
Locatelli B (2016) Ecosystem services and climate change. In: Potschin M, Haines-Young R, Fish R, Turner RK (eds) Routledge handbook of ecosystem services. Routledge, London, pp 481–490
Lowder SK, Sánchez MV, Bertini R (2019) Farms, family farms, farmland distribution, and farm labor: what do we know today? In: FAO agricultural development economics working paper 19–08. FAO, Rome
Mann S, Mittenzwei K, Hasselmann F (2013) The importance of succession on business growth: a case study of family farms in Switzerland and Norway. Yearb Socioecon Agric 6(1):109–137. http://www.sse-sga.ch/_downloads/YSA2013_Mann.pdf
Mooney PH (1988) My own boss? Class, rationality, and the family farm. Westview Press, Boulder, CO
Naidoo R, Fisher B (2020) Reset sustainable development goals for a pandemic world. Nature 583:198–201
NAMDEVCO (2010) The national agricultural marketing and development corporation. Fix the soil for sustainable agriculture, an innovative model. GreenVine Monthly Bulletin 6(9):4–5. http://www.namistt.com/DocumentLibrary/Greenvine/2010/September/September%202010.pdf
NAMDEVCO (2021) NAMDEVCO marketing services. https://www.namdevco.com
OECD/FAO (2019) Agricultural outlook 2019–2028. Latin America agriculture: prospects and challenges. Chapter 2. https://books.google.tt › books
OECD/FAO (2020) OECD/FAO Agricultural Outlook 2020–2029. OECD Publishing, Paris/FAO, Rome
Persad S, Rampersad I, Wilson H (2007) Soil and water constraints to food crop production in Trinidad and Tobago – challenges and opportunities for small farms. Soil and land capability unit. Research Division, Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources, Centeno
Poulton C, Dorward A, Kydd J (2010) The future of small farms: new directions for services, institutions, and intermediation. World Dev 38(10):1413–1428
Ritchie, H. (2021). Smallholders produce one-third of the World’s food, less than half of what many headlines claim. https://ourworldindata.org/smallholder-food-production
Skoufias E, Rabassa M, Olivieri S, Brahmbhatt M (2011) The poverty impacts of climate change. In: Economic Premise, vol 5622. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper
Stads G et al (2016) A cross-country analysis of institutions, investment, and capacities. Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://www.asti.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/pdf/LACRegionalReport2016.pdf
STAN (2002, June) Working with excellence. St. Augustine News of the University of the West Indies, p 12. https://sta.uwi.edu/stan/archives/stan22002.pdf
Terlau W, Hirsch D, Blanke M (2018) Smallholder farmers as a backbone for the implementation of the sustainable development goals. Sustain Dev 27:523–529. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1907
Thulstrup AW (2015) Livelihood resilience and adaptive capacity: tracing changes in household access to capital in Central Vietnam. World Dev 74:352–362
Tittonell P, Giller KE (2013) When yield gaps are poverty traps: the paradigm of ecological intensification in African smallholder agriculture. Field Crop Res 143:76–90
Tran L, Brown K (2019) The importance of ecosystem services to smallholder farmers in climate change adaptation: learning from an ecosystem-based adaptation pilot in Vietnam. Agrofor Syst 93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-018-0302-y
UN (2015) Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development (a/RES/70/1), New York, NY. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld/publication
UN (2018) Interagency task team on science, technology, and innovation for the SDGs science, technology, and innovation for SDGs roadmaps. UN Interagency Task Team on Science, Technology, and Innovation for the SDGs, New York, NY
UN News (2019) United Nations, department of economic and social affairs, population division. World population prospects 2019: highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/423)
van der Ploeg JD (2013) Ten qualities of family farming. Farming Matters 29(4):8–11. https://www.ileia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/FM04_definitief.pdf
Wolfenson KDM, Rome A (2013) Coping with the food and agriculture challenges: smallholder farmers’ agenda. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Rome
World Bank (2014) Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion Ensenanza and International Center for Tropical Agriculture. In: Climate-smart agriculture country profiles: Latin America and the Caribbean | CCAFS: CGIAR research program on climate change, agriculture and food security. The World Bank Group, Washington, DC. https://ccafs.cgiar.org/publications/climate-smart-agriculture-country-profiles-latin-america-and-caribbean#.XKeHopgzaUk
World Bank Group (2019) Climate change knowledge portal for development practitioners and policy makers. https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/trinidad-and-tobago/impacts-agriculture
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support of the following contributors to the chapter:
-
1.
Mr. Vassel Stewart, an outstanding Caribbean expert in agribusiness development and the President of CABA, provided internal documents on CABA’s strategy.
-
2.
Dr. Vickey John-Joseph of Jade Mountain & Anse Chastanet Resorts, St. Lucia, provided information from her Doctoral Thesis (2022) *International Business* and the Successful Strategies to Drive Change Management Initiatives within Global Organizations.
-
3.
Professor Walter Leal Filho, Dr. Miguel Córdova, and the Springer Reference Editorial Team for their reviews of the drafts, which provided guidance and support for the successful chapter completion.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Roop, R., Weaver, M., Fonseca, A.P., Matouq, M. (2023). Innovative Approaches in Smallholder Farming Systems to Implement the Sustainable Development Goals. In: Aguilar-Rivera, N., Borsari, B., R. B. de Brito, P., Andrade Guerra, B. (eds) SDGs in the Americas and Caribbean Region. Implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Regional Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16017-2_70
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16017-2_70
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-16016-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-16017-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences