Poverty eradication and food security through agriculture in Africa: Rethinking objectives and entry points
Poverty eradication and food security through agriculture in Africa: Rethinking objectives and entry points
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DOI：
10.1177/0030727019888513
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发表时间：
2019-11-21
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Dobie, P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gassner, A.;Harris, D.;Dobie, P.
非洲的农业可望实现提供粮食和帮助人们摆脱贫困的双重目标。非洲农业以小农户为主，捐助者一般将农业支助的目标放在小农户部门。人们的期望是，如果实际产量和潜在产量之间的差距能够弥合，小农将种植足够的作物养活家人，并有剩余可供出售，从而满足粮食安全需求，并带来收入，使他们摆脱贫困。在实践中，这往往是不可能的。虽然已经有技术可以将小农的产量提高三到四倍，即使在干旱的条件下，他们可用的土地面积很小，限制了他们的种植量，人均农业收入不足以让人们超越目前世界银行定义的每天1.90美元的贫困线。我们将这一发现与农民类型学联系起来，以进一步解释单个农户在投资动机和从旨在提高农业生产力的田间技术中受益的能力方面存在很大差异。我们认为，在非洲的农业发展更有区别的政策，并建议政策制定者应该更加意识到农场的异质性和相应的目标干预。重要的是要了解农业在哪里以及为谁提供确保粮食和营养安全的主要目的，以及在哪里以及为谁提供显着增加收入和为更广泛的经济增长做出贡献的潜力。让我们认识到这些目标和潜在目标群体的独特性，并努力寻求解决根本需求的办法。
Agriculture in Africa is expected to meet the dual objectives of providing food and helping people to escape poverty. African agriculture is dominated by smallholdings and donors generally target their agricultural support at the smallholder sector. The expectation is that if the gap between actual and potential yields can be closed, smallholders will grow sufficient crops to feed their families, with a surplus to sell, thus meeting food security needs and bringing in an income to move them out of poverty. In practice, this is often not possible. While technologies already exist that can raise smallholder farmers' yields 3 or 4 times, even under rainfed conditions, the small size of land available to them limits how much can be grown and the per capita income from agriculture is insufficient to allow people to move above the current World Bank-defined poverty line of US$1.90 per day. We link this finding with farmer typologies to further explain that there are large differences between individual farming households themselves in terms of their investment incentives and capability to benefit from field-level technologies that are aimed at increasing farm productivity. We argue for more differentiated policies for agricultural development in Africa and suggest that policymakers should be much more aware of the heterogeneity of farms and target interventions accordingly. It is important to understand where and for whom agriculture will have the main purpose of ensuring food and nutritional security and where and for whom there is the potential for significant increases in incomes and a contribution to wider economic growth. Let us recognize the distinctiveness of these targets and underlying target groups and work towards solutions that address the underlying needs.