Innovative Approaches In Smallholder Farming Systems To Implement The Sustainable Development Goals

Roop, Ramgopaul; Weaver, Miles; Fonseca, Ana Paula; Matouq, Mohammed

Abstract

The identified 169 targets in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) refer to agriculture and the contributions of smallholder farmers toward eliminating human hunger globally within the 15 years of 2015-2030. 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 expects to negatively influence food and nutrition security overall prospects by stalling efforts to achieve 'Zero hunger.' This paper is an empirical study of agriculture in the Americas and Caribbean Region. It focuses on smallholder farming using qualitative methods and secondary data (documentary analysis) to help implement innovations in smallholder farming to achieve the SDG's agenda. The research provides information and innovative strategies implemented on a regional model farm in Trinidad, building resilience to climate change over the past twenty-five years. This model could contribute to new avenues for sustainable smallholder farming systems in other regional countries to achieve the SDGs.

Citation

Roop, R., Weaver, M., Fonseca, A. P., & Matouq, M. (in press). Innovative Approaches In Smallholder Farming Systems To Implement The Sustainable Development Goals. In W. L. Filho, N. Aguilar-Rivera, B. Borsari, P. R. de Brito, & B. Andrade Guerra (Eds.), SDGs in the Americas and Caribbean Region. Cham: Springer

• Acceptance Date: Dec 29, 2022
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2022
• Publisher: Springer
• Series Title: Implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals - Regional Perspectives
• Series ISSN: 2731-5576
• Book Title: SDGs in the Americas and Caribbean Region
• ISBN: 978-3-031-16016-5
• Keywords: Agriculture; Smallholder Farming; Building Resilience; Climate change; Agroecology; Lean management
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2867929
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031160165