Is rainfed agriculture really a pathway from poverty

By D. Harris, A. Orr. 2014

186 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Agriculture’s potential to reduce poverty at household level is explored for rainfed crop production in Africa and India. A literature survey of crop improvement and natural resource management interventions demonstrates that new technology can substantially increase net returns per hectare per cropping season. However, the median net income from improved technologies was only $558/ha/season at 2005 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and a de facto limit of around $1700/ha/season was identified, with values rarely exceeding $1000/ha/season. These values for net returns from the literature were mostly derived from small-plot studies and are likely to be overestimates when technologies are implemented by farmers on larger areas. Crop production could be a pathway from poverty where smallholders are able to increase farm size or where markets stimulate crop diversification, commercialisation and increased farm profitability. For most smallholders, however, small farm size and limited access to markets mean that returns from improved technology are too small for crop production alone to lift them above the poverty line and the direct benefit will be improved household food security.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d23f8be69f24ec39bbf69fc3d52038f1b05720e8

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In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

In Sociology and Political Science

In Soil Science

Citations in the corpus

Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers (2019, background): “Income generated by conventional smallholder farms is seldom adequate to ensure a meaningful livelihood (HomannKee Tui et al., 2015; Harris and Orr, 2014).”
A review on the contribution of crop diversification to Sustainable Development Goal 1 “No poverty” in different world regions (2019, background): “Many studies (e.g., Bravo‐Ureta, Solis, Cochi, & Quiroga, 2006; Harris & Orr, 2014; Oladele, 2011; Weinberger & Lumpkin, 2007) have analysed the relation between crop diversification and poverty alleviation by investigating its contribution to rural incomes and creation of employment opportunities.”
Adoption of agroforestry and the impact on household food security among farmers in Malawi (2016, background): “Harris and Orr (2014) also stress that smallholders are often limited in keeping the same return achieved from a small area of land on a larger scale.”
Climate change adaptation and mitigation in smallholder crop–livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa: a call for integrated impact assessments (2016, background): “In many African regions, small farm sizes prevent investments in improved technologies or practices to be economically viable (Harris and Orr 2014).”