What Can Agriculture Do for the Poorest Rural Groups?

Abstract

Most of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas. They derive a large share of income from agriculture, as small farmers or as workers – or as both. Agricultural development is therefore often seen as the key to reducing poverty, especially rural poverty. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, where the rural poor are mostly small farmers, it is clear that increasing the efficiency of these farmers vis-à-vis large farmers (or of the country as a whole vis-à-vis competing countries) improves the small farmers’ condition. They can expand their sales and/or can produce their own subsistence with less effort or lower cash costs (for a full discussion see World Bank, 1986).

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