Small Farm Led Development Still a Relevant Strategy for Africa and Asia ?
نویسنده
چکیده
Although there is a lot of country and regional variation, the overwhelming story across much of Africa and Asia is one of more small farms, shrinking farm sizes and increased income diversification. Despite growth, sometimes quite rapid growth, in national per capita incomes, there is little sign yet of a shift to the patterns of farm consolidation and matching levels of rural-urban migration that occurred during the economic transformation of today’s industrialized countries. Rather, relatively few workers are leaving their farms for the cities and instead are diversifying into nonfarm activity from a small farm base. In some countries even the total agricultural land area is becoming more concentrated among small farms, and it is the large farms that are being squeezed out. This ‘reverse’ farm transition is creating new tensions and potential tradeoffs between important economic, social and environmental goals. During the green revolution era, small farm growth was seen as a winning proposition for growth, poverty alleviation and food security outcomes, and concern focused largely on adverse environmental outcomes. This is now changing and the future outlook is for less complementary outcomes at national scales between growth, poverty alleviation and food security goals, posing more difficult choices for policy makers. There can be no pretence that all of today’s small farms (some 500 million less than 2 ha in size) have viable futures in farming, and in many cases the appropriate emphasis should be on providing assistance in diversifying into a non-farm business or off farm employment, or leaving farming altogether. However, despite pessimism in recent years about the future of small farms, small farms situations are actually very diverse, and there are plenty of viable business opportunities for many to exploit if they receive the rights kinds of
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تاریخ انتشار 2013