Smallholder farming in difficult circumstances: policy issues for Africa

Is the small farm in Africa is becoming increasingly unviable as a sustainable economic and social unit? Outlining major trends and processes affecting the future of the small farm in the region, the authors of this paper identify policy responses and public investment strategies by governments and multilateral donors that are likely to be required to grant the African smallholder a real chance in an increasingly globalised world.

Some of the many trends impacting heavily on the African small farm include:

• HIV/AIDS
• international trade policies and agricultural subsides
• civil disruption
• weak national support for smallholder agriculture

Even with positive changes in key policy areas, the number of small farms in Africa is likely to shrink, according to the authors, as a result of structural transformation driven by agricultural productivity growth, which in turn leads to wider economic development.

However, without real changes in the implementation of development assistance, world trade protocols, and the allocation of resources by governments, most of the small farms in Africa will face a very uncertain and untenable future with increasingly chronic crises of hunger and poverty. The main messages put forward by the paper are that:

• the challenges facing small farms in difficult circumstances is largely the same set of challenges involved in achieving broad-based agricultural growth and rural development
• the key to reviving the health of the small farm sector in Africa involves the supportive decisions of national and international actors – it is not simply a question of ‘organising’ resource-poor local communities
• long term, the most optimistic scenario is likely to involve enabling most smallholder households to exit farming by being ‘pulled” into other sectors of the economy through rising demand for non-farm jobs created by sustained agricultural productivity growth
• a meaningful agricultural growth strategy aimed to support the small farm, including those in the most difficult circumstances, will need to match recent promises of support for “pro-poor” agricultural growth with necessary financial support and policy attention