Transformations in West African agriculture and the role of family farms

Winners and losers from the ongoing process of agricultural transformation in West Africa

What is the future of the family farm in West Africa? Who is gaining and who is losing from the ongoing process of agricultural transformation?This publication, produced in preparation for the WTO Cancun summit in 2003, provides an overview of agricultural change in the last 30 years in the context of globalisation, and assesses what is needed to support family farm enterprises through the challenges of continuing change.

The paper emphasises that ‘family farms’ encompass a wide diversity in terms of household composition, cropping patterns and other income sources, and are under a range of different pressures due to social and economic change, land fragmentation, changing land rights management processes, and a policy emphasis on commercial farming. It highlights that:

not all farmers are getting poorer - farmers have maintained growth in food production and expanded key commodity exports, although returns are threatened by cheap imports, falling world market prices, and difficulties in accessing credit and inputs
vulnerable groups include households suffering a combination of misfortune, such as harvest failure and poor leadership; pastoral herders who suffered heavy livestock losses in the 1980s and have been unable to restock; and those with weak claims to land.

The publication highlights a need for:

cutting overproduction and dumping by richer countries, which involves addressing rich country agricultural subsidies
supporting the organisation of smallholder agricultural producers for marketing, input negotiation, and representing their interests at national and regional levels in the design of agricultural policies, as well as land tenure and trade policies.

Related content

Document
The future of work: Findings of research commissioned by the Oxfam ‘Empower Youth for Work’ program
B. Faith, J. Flynn, K. Hernandez, T. Roberts / Oxfam Novib, 2020
Empower Youth for Work (EYW) is a five-year program (2016-2021) run by Oxfam, funded by the IKEA Foundation.
Document
Social norms and supply chains: A focus on child labour and waste recycling in Hlaing Tharyar, Yangon, Myanmar
S. Constant, P. Oosterhoff, K. Oo, E. Lay, N. Aung / Institute of Development Studies UK, 2020
This Emerging Evidence Report examines the social norms, and the material and institutional factors that influence the employment of children in various forms of hazardous work in Hlaing Tharyar township, Yangon, Myanmar.
Document
Labouring for livelihoods: Gender, productivity and collectivity
B. Agarwal / Springerlink, 2020
Current debates in India on work, employment and labour markets have paid rather little attention to three important distinctions: between sustainable livelihoods and labour force participation; between autonomously managing non-family enterprises versus participation in decision-making within the confines of famil
Document
Visions of urban modernity and the shrinking of public space:challenges for street work in African cities
I. Lindell, O. Adama / Nordic Africa Institute / Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 2020
Making cities inclusive is one of the goals of Agenda 2030, and access to public spaces is identified as an important sub-goal. However, in urban Africa, access by street vendors and other marginalised groups to public spaces seems to be on the decline.
Document
Ending the financial entrapment of street vendors in Colombia
V. Benson, L.M. Martínez Quintero / Impact Initiative, 2020
In the global South, the informal economy provides over 50 per cent of urban employment. In Cali, Colombia, the absence of government intervention and financial programmes means that illegal moneylenders are used by workers in the informal economy to keep themselves afloat. Consequently, workers such as street vendors remain beholden to extortionate interest rates.

Eldis

Transformations in West African agriculture and the role of family farms