This paper addresses the question: Do small farms have a future in the developing world? The case for rural development is easy to make: the large majority of the poor live in the rural areas of the developing world. Even with urbanisation, this will not change for at least another 20 years. Although some of the rural poor may be helped by transfers from cities, for most any improvement in their incomes will depend on generating more and better jobs in rural areas.
Peter Hazell, Colin Poulton, Steve Wiggins and Andrew Dorward