Farming Families – their pains and gains

Family Farming gains: Sorting harvested farm produce

Family farmers across the world are indeed happy on the year 2014 been declared as the year of the family farmer, some wonder what the UN declaration means for them. If you are one of them, check my earlier article on this topic.Every farming family wants to work less and earn more, expect that the weather will always be favorable for their crops and/or animals.  They also want to have a great family that will support their farming activities, lots of money, look perfect and live the good life.  Everybody wants that, but it’s doing it that’s hard!

It is always wonderful to expect the best: good weather, bountiful harvests, disease free crops and animals, the question is: What pain are you willing to go through in order to gain these things?  You choose to make farming as a business; you probably would have taken a 9-5 job somewhere else.  But in order to get all these other wants typically means that you are going to have to go through at least an equal amount of pain in order to achieve them.

The pains…

People want to be rich without the risk and without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.  Everyone wants to have a great farm with healthy animals, lushly green vegetative plants free of diseases and pest attack, the big question is: what level of extra work or pain are you willing to go through in order to achieve this level of success?  Family farmers are faced with the harsh reality of drought, flood, crop failure, pest attack, diseases outbreak in plant and animals, lack of finance, and sadly most family farmers face hunger. Many years ago, a neighbor woke up to the death of over 50 of her egg laying birds in one night that she broke down and cried. What sustained her and her family was gone!

The gains…

We probably know that “Nothing good in life comes easily,” Just like the woman who lost almost all her egg laying hens in one night, we have been faced with several pains in the course of our family farm, but are there gains? Yes there are a lot, many family farmers have labor for several hours daily facing all the challenges mentioned above and are still able to provide for their family from sales of their farm produce. Many have lifted their families from poverty by growing profitable crops and animals, forming partnerships and exporting their produce out of their countries thereby earning foreign exchange.

My thoughts…

Amidst all efforts of several governments, agencies and international organizations to improve food security, there is still a large population of family farmers especially in Africa who go to bed hungry. Supporting smallholder Family farmers by reducing their pains and increasing their gains will not only contribute to food security for farmers and the community, it will also lift a majority of them out of poverty. what do you think? (Please comment below)