Deep Roots

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Image: Bioversity International/Alfredo Camacho

Farmers preparing soil for planting of quinoa in Bolivia. Bioversity International and partners have been researching quinoa and other

Andean grains for over a decade

and malnutrition.

Risk of hunger is reduced as the multiplic-

ity of foods grown become available at different times and in

different niches throughout the year. The quality of foods and

dietary diversity is an important factor in reducing malnu-

trition at the household level.

Furthermore, as foods with

high nutritional quality and taste are increasingly demanded

in local and national markets, agriculturally diverse products

provide family farmers with entrepreneurial opportunities

in higher value markets. This, however, requires increased

institutional support, and production and harvest technolo-

gies that can meet demands with regularity and quality.

Family farmers also tend to rely on agroecological tech-

niques to grow and protect their crops on their small parcels

of land. Given their limited incomes to use purchased

inputs, and the fact that much of the technology and farm

machinery available is economically efficient at larger

scales, farmers use their knowledge of plant combinations,

multiple cropping, agroforestry, sylvopastoralism and small

livestock in homestead production to maximize total yields

and benefits from small parcels with high concentrations of

agricultural biodiversity.

The new post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

place people’s participation at the centre of the vision for

change. In this light, several principles are crucial for achiev-

ing the SDG by empowering and supporting family farming:

• valuing gender perspectives and diversity and the rich

knowledge and multiple strategies and options that

emerge from diverse perspectives and practices on

complex productive landscapes

• adaptation and innovation can be endogenous, and is

often faster and more sustainable when it is

• family farmers, given their knowledge of local

resources and capacity to manage complex production

systems at a small scale, can produce high-quality

foods efficiently when access to productive and

financial resources is assured

• family farmers have demonstrated potential to identify

new and useful components of agricultural biodiversity to

become entrepreneurs, given improved access to markets.

Crop diversity as a market and nutrition opportunity

In the Kolli Hills of India, with support from the International Fund

for Agricultural Devlopment, Bioversity International worked with

the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation and local women’s self-help

groups to find market avenues for six species of minor millets. High

in nutritional value, and easy to grow in marginal areas, millets

have a strong comparative advantage in the area. By introducing

better processing machinery and training in product creation and

experimentation, several new products such as Ragi Malt Drink and

Savi Padu are now on the market. School feeding programmes that

switched from white rice to finger and foxtail millet-based meals

found that within three months, haemoglobin levels of children were

between 32 per cent and 37.6 per cent higher than the control

group.

The Indian Government has now adopted millets as part of

its food security package.

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