Unquestion #15: When We Place Global Goals on Smallholders

The goals we place

We often say that smallholders are key to addressing the world’s persistent crises. We say they are central to global food security, healthy diets, sustainability, biodiversity, climate resilience, and reducing emissions. This we say.

We also say that science-based farming practices hold the key to solving these crises. Agronomy. Sustainable agriculture. Sustainable intensification. Agroecology. Land sparing. Land sharing. Healthy soils. Fallowing. Cover cropping. No-till. Minimum tillage. Agroforestry. Afforestation. Reforestation. Practices long established, long in the books, and widely taught. This we know.

We say the future lies in smallholder fields. Yet what lies in those fields, more often than not, is poverty. Among the smallholders we support, the count is closer to 250 million households and a billion people. The land behind that count is only about a tenth of the world’s farmland. The land they hold cannot carry all that we counted on it for. This is Common Ground.

What enters income on the PPF

Smallholders farm for sustenance, yet seek higher-earning labor when it can be found elsewhere. We see them sell nutrition for calories—eggs, milk, vegetables—when they fetch income, to purchase staples and essentials. This we see.

Smallholders, like everyone, produce for income, if they can, and stay where they are if they cannot. We make production choices on the PPF—the Production Possibilities Frontier—through the tradeoffs faced before production begins. Those decisions are guided by the income we expect to realize. This we know.

Science and the books tell us that science-based agriculture is already nature-conserving. But what enters income from production is what producers can count on the PPF. The accounts close each production cycle or budget year. Each added cost taken on without adding revenue reduces the income recorded for that period. This we know.

Income rises on the PPF when one spends less for the same revenue, or earns more revenue without an equivalent rise in costs. Practices for conservation or reducing emissions that add cost without enough additional revenue reduce the income realized from that production. This we Question.

What comes after production

There is no consumption without production. Production is how we make income. Economics describes our consumption choices through the indifference curve and the budget line, and our production possibilities through the PPF. Income therefore connects consumption and production, between using income and making more income. GDP records the value added through what those PPFs have already produced. What does not enter as a cost on the PPF does not enter later simply when production and income are aggregated as GDP. This we know.

We then read the aggregate record of GDP after the fact, after each producer has already made the production decision. The GDP we analyze carries forward what production on the PPF has already counted, with the same costs still left out. This we Question.

The long term we ask for

We often ask farmers to consider long-term benefits. But the accounts close each season or year. Income has to add up within each cycle. This we Question.

Every producer decides what costs to add on their PPF. A conservation cost that does not have to enter every PPF need not enter any particular one. Taking on that cost remains optional; leaving it out preserves income. This is where conservation stalls, not only for smallholders, but for farms and firms, small and large alike. This we Question.

The language around the goals

The goals persist and their language grows, while production still runs on the same old PPF. Climate-smart agriculture. Double bottom line. Triple bottom line. Conservation agriculture. Regenerative agriculture. Nature-positive agriculture. Natural Farming. Climate finance. Payments for ecosystem services. Hidden costs. True cost accounting. True cost of food. Beyond the price tag. Factoring hidden costs into decision-making. Carbon finance. Green growth. Food-system transformation. This we do.

The language gathers food, income, resilience, biodiversity, conservation, and climate into the same production response. But the producer still returns to the PPF, where what adds cost without adding revenue remains a cost reducing income within that cycle. This we Question.

What everyone counts

The same math applies to every producer, in the economies where we live and the economies where we work, from farms to food firms and fuel firms. A cost that one farm or firm can leave out can be left out by the next. What is optional for one remains optional for the next. This we know.

Smallholder farms are already more biodiverse than larger ones. Their persisting poverty remains the reason for our support. Yet we continue to say they count for more: tree planting, diversification, conservation, carbon storage, reduced emissions, and the longer-term goals. We count those goals in our projects and project cycles. Project support enters the smallholder’s income calculation while it lasts. Beyond those project plots lie the rest of smallholder land and the much larger land share held by larger farms. Taking on costs for the same global goals remains optional there too. After support ends, the smallholder leaves out practices that add cost without bringing enough revenue within each PPF cycle, under the same income accounting as every other farm and firm in all economies. This we Question.

So here is the Unquestion:

The more we Unquestion, the more clarity we gain. The more we Unquestion now, the less future generations will have to.

We are not lost.
We simply avoid the turn.
Once we Unquestion, the direction is already clear.

Thank you for seeing.