Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
agricultural products, a situation that has severe implications for
small-scale farmers. Although primary production is still a major
source of export earnings for many countries in Africa and Asia,
changes in the global economy have led to a 'deagrarianization
'
of the
countryside as farming has become increasingly commercialized and
dominated by powerful global agri-business and MNCs (see Chapter 3.2).
Rural workers are increasingly dependent on seasonal contracts or
insecure work in the rural informal sector (Chapter 3.3), a situation
that is seen by many as untenable. The World Bank's solution
to smallholder poverty lies in what it calls the new agriculture, a
set of approaches that advocate the rise of large-scale corporate
agri-businesses, aided by the state (World Bank, 2007; McMichael,
2009). The problems associated with the increasing power of the global
food industry and the exploitation of low-paid female workers in what
Robinson (2004) calls 'the new plantations' in high value products like
flowers, have been well documented (Oxfam 2004; Hale and Opondo,
2005; McMichael, 2009). As a consequence, fair trade initiatives that
offer farmers a fair price, security and better working conditions, have
achieved increasing support from consumers and retailers in the global
North (Raynolds et al., 2007; Le Mare, 2008). Other pro-poor solutions
include a re-engagement with land reform and redistribution
,
and
there has been a recent increase in grassroots support for reform in
countries like Brazil and Mexico (Jacobs, 2009) in order to build more
secure livelihoods for rural communities. The redistribution of land to
the poor is one of the most effective ways of securing more sustainable
livelihoods for rural communities.
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Sustainable Rural Livelihoods:
Challenges and Interventions
Although the concept of 'sustainable development' remains highly con-
tested, one of the most enduring definitions stems from the Brundtland
Commission's notion of intergenerational equality and their definition
of sustainability as 'development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising those of future generations' (World Commission
on Environment and Development, 1987; Whitehead, 2007). Drawing on
the African experience, Amanor and Moyo (2008: 3) suggest that there
