Lecture 4

Question 1

What are some general trends of agriculture in developing context?

Answer 1

• Decreasing share of labour force in agriculture, increasing yields, but highly variable by region
• Rise of international agribusiness in value chains (inputs, processing, retailing…)

Question 2

What are the major policy objectives related to in the agriculture in developing contexts?

Answer 2

• Sustainable agricultures and rural development

- long term improvements to living standards particularly food security in rural regions

Question 3

What % GDP does agricultural and agro-processing account for in developing countries?

Answer 3

30-60%

Question 4

Where is the major food insecurity in the world?

Answer 4

Asia and the pacific

Question 5

What are forces working against smallholder farmers ?

Answer 5

• Labour intensive work
• Low innovation
• Vulnerable to shocks
• Market chanins are becoming more demanding (quality and safety)
• Rural-urban migration, demographic change, land scarcity

Question 6

What are characteristics/challenges of smallholder farmers?

Answer 6

• Many forces working against smallholder farmers
• They play a key role in the rural economy as consumers, of goods and services and as voters
• They suffer from a wide range of market failures
• They face some barriers to collective action (unlike larger farmers)
• Direct subsidies are not viable

Question 7

What is the smallholder policy theory?

Answer 7

• Agricultural output produced for own consumption or small scale barter
• Focus tends to be on staple foods
• Simplest, traditional, labour-intensive methods - Low labour productivity
• Seasonal structure: labour generally underemployed but fully occupied at planting or harvest time
• No formal insurance markets availablel so how to insure against riskl how smooth consumption?
• In the face of this risk and seasonality of production ,what do farmers do?

Question 8

What are some examples of rural institutions and contracts? (5)

Answer 8

• Self-insurance by choice of “safer” technique/crop
• Mutual insurance
• Sharecropping
• Diversification through corps/plts
• Interlinkages

Question 9

What are some of the roles for public policy?

Answer 9

• Correct the over-exploitation or inappropriate use of resources by ensuring that all environmental services are correctly valued
• Incorporate institutional development and new technologies
• Reduce risks and vulnerabilities of farming communities
  - Diversify cropping systems for resilience
  - Weather forecasting to aid planting date and management decisions
  - Knowledge and innovation network
• supporting the development of policies and projects for sustainable resource management and conservation
• Building capacity for improved governance
• Supporting the containment of illegal activities
• Addressing fiscal and trade issues related to products
• Proactively promoting catalytic investments in integrated resource management and conservation

Question 10

What is the value chain approach?

Answer 10

• The range of actovotoes required to bring product or service from production throught to final consumption
• Used for understanding how actors insert themselves into economic processes and the implications of this for rural development

Question 11

What are some policy challenges?

Answer 11

• High agriculture subsidies in developed economies
• Elite capture at all scales of decision-making
• Competition for land resources
• Climate change
• Gender inequity and household food insecurity
• Agriculture is both the cause and the victim of environment problems

Question 12

What does land reforms imply?

Answer 12

• Can involve giving farmers more secure property rights
• Typically involves taking land from large land-owners and re-distributing to smaller farmers
• Hard to pass a reform if large land-owners hold the power