Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 17
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- Contract farming often leads the producer to shift from food crops to cash crops. When farmers change all of their crop production to non-food crops covered by contractual arrangements, however, they relinquish the ability to produce food for their families, thus losing a valuable safety net. This renders the farmers vulnerable to food price increases, particularly if firms do not meet their contractual obligations or if farm incomes are lower than expected in comparison to the evolution of food prices. Farmers sometimes also have to manage gaps between contract cycles, during which time they do not earn any money from farming. To mitigate the risks involved in the shift to cash crops and the resulting dependence of farming households on the market to purchase food, a portion of the contracting farmer's land should be left to the farmer or other household members to grow food crops for household consumption. This can be effective especially where the contract farmer benefits from technology and skills transfers, leading to multiplier effects on non-contracted farming activities, including subsistence crop farming. Similarly, farmers can use by-products and residues from contract farming activities in various ways, including by selling the by-products or using them for subsistence activities. In Madagascar, small-scale farmers contracted by Lecofruit for vegetable production use part of the land for the production of rice, the staple crop, and the productivity of rice increases (from 3.6 to 6.0 tons/ha) thanks to the use of compost and manure and the recycling of waste from vegetable production. In Mali, the production of biodiesel from jatropha by small-scale farmers contracted by MaliBiocarburant SA (MBSA) produces residual "press cakes" that can be used as an organic fertilizer, as well as glycerine used to produce soap. The jatropha trees are intercropped with maize, which accounts for 80 per cent of the surface, ensuring that priority is given to staple food crops. This should ensure adequate protection for the contract farmer against the risk of occasional bad harvests or sudden crop price depressions. Such a guarantee of a stable income commensurate with an adequate standard of living is essential, and even a pricing mechanism that, as proposed below, guarantees a minimum price to the producer (unless the price is linked to the cost of production and the cost of living) would not provide an equivalent safeguard.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Food, Report to the UNGA (2011), A/66/262, para. 17.
- Paragraph number
- 17
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