M. Kisan Gunjal, économiste agricole canadien de l'Université McGill, a passé 10 mois au siège de la FAO dans le cadre du Programme d'experts invités des établissements universitaires et instituts de recherche, cherchant l'incidence des contraintes technologiques et socioéconomiques sur les systèmes d'exploitation à l'échelon local dans les pays en développement au titre du Programme spécial pour la sécurité alimentaire (PSSA).
Lors de son séjour à la FAO, M. Kisan Gunjal a conçu une méthode permettant de procéder à une analyse des contraintes pesant sur un système d'exploitation dans une région donnée d'un pays. Son travail a consisté à élaborer un modèle de programmation mathématique pour évaluer l'incidence de la levée de certaines contraintes technologiques et socio-économiques pesant sur les systèmes d'exploitation à l'échelon local. Ce modèle a ensuite été appliqué à un pays en développement des Balkans, l'Albanie.
Un economista agrónomo canadiense, Kisan Gunjal de la Universidad McGill pasó diez meses en la FAO en el ámbito del Programa para expertos visitantes de instituciones académicas y de investigación. Durante su estancia, llevó a cabo investigaciones sobre el impacto de las limitaciones tecnológicas y socioeconómicas que pesan sobre los sistemas agrícolas locales de los países en desarrollo, dentro del marco del Programa Especial para la Seguridad Alimentaria (PESA).
Durante su misión en la FAO, Kisan Gumjal desarrolló una metodología para llevar a cabo análisis de limitaciones en un sistema agrícola de una determinada zona de un país. La metodología incluía la construcción de un modelo matemático de programación para evaluar el impacto que tiene aliviar las limitaciones críticas de orden tecnológico y socioeconómico que afectan a los sistemas agrícolas locales. El modelo se aplicó luego a un país en desarrollo de los Balcanes, Albania.
Kisan Gunjal, a Canadian agricultural economist at McGill University, spent ten months at FAO under the Programme for Visiting Experts from Academic and Research Institutions researching
Canadian agricultural economist, Kisan Gunjal |
The SPFS was launched by FAO in 1994 with the principal objective of improving national food security in low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs). It aims at assisting these countries through a rapid increase in their agricultural production on an economically and environmentally sustainable basis, the reduction in year-to-year variability in output and improved access to food. The underlying assumption is that in most LIFDCs, viable and sustainable means of increasing food availability exist. This potential is not realized owing to a range of institutional, financial and economic, infrastructural and social constraints operating from the individual farm to the national level. The SPFS works with farmers and other stakeholders to identify and help design a strategy to mitigate the constraints preventing farmers from responding to production needs and opportunities. Its approach emphasizes the use of proved technologies, such as small-scale water harvesting and the management of irrigation and drainage systems, as well as the importance of appropriate technological innovations. It also encourages grassroots participation at all stages.
During his assignment with FAO, Gunjal developed a methodology to conduct constraints analysis for a farming system in a givenarea of a country. The methodology involved building a mathematical programming model to evaluate the impact of alleviating critical technological and socio-economic constraints affecting local farming systems. The model was then applied to a selected country example - the developing Balkan country, Albania. He prepared the Albanian case study using the data of an FAO mission he and two other experts had recently undertaken in Albania.
The SPFS operates over small geographical areas, and the local FAO-SPFS team conducted a detailed survey of basic farming systems and farming practices in the village of Divjaka in Lushnje district, southwest of Tirana. Divjaka was chosen because it forms a good agricultural base with a mixed system of mainly horticultural crops and livestock and has a strong irrigation potential. Participatory identification of constraints and gender sensitivity are important components of the SPFS. One of the other mission members, Vicki Wilde, played a key role by conducting stakeholders' meetings in the village which were attended by groups of both female and male farmers. It emerged from the meetings that the three most serious constraints in Divjaka's farming system were the lack of good-quality seeds, an inadequate irrigation system and poor marketing facilities.
Gunjal analysed these and other constraints to local production. He found that, under existing conditions, if access to credit is not constrained, the irrigation facilities will generate four times more net farm income for local farmers than they would obtain without irrigation.
Repair of broken irrigation gates in Divjaka, Lushnje district, Albania |
The results of the analysis suggest that the optimal farm production plan would require the average farmer to hire much more labour than is now the case, especially during the critical seasonal periods. But migration to cities and to other countries has changed the rural labour supply situation substantially in recent years. Significant increases in cash income could be obtained if some way were to be found to remove this labour constraint. A more thorough investigation of Albania's labour and land markets is under way with a view to identifying concrete actions that may be taken to alleviate this major constraint.
Albania previously had a good irrigation system, but its irrigation infrastructure has been destroyed in recent years. The World Bank has set up a major project to rehabilitate it. According to Gunjal, once the irrigation system is working satisfactorily, production will increase substantially, and then marketing facilities will become an important concern. The local market is not big enough to absorb output, but farmers do not produce enough to attract large-scale dealers. To gain access to major markets, local farmers need to get their produce to large towns and export it. To do this, they need to form marketing cooperatives or associations that can arrange their own transport.
Albania is a small country with irrigation-based horticultural cropping systems; a contrasting case study is planned for India, a large country with dryland, cereal-based cropping systems.