Smallholder
A smallholder is a farmer with a low level of production factors . Precise definitions are usually not available and the classification differs from state to state. In contrast to this is the larger large farmer and the smaller half farmer .
According to the World Bank , around 1.5 billion people worldwide live in smallholder households. Some of the smallholders sell surpluses in markets, including the growing high-value-products markets. A large part of the smallholders only operate subsistence agriculture due to a lack of production factors, in particular the available soil and insufficient agricultural technology , as well as other disadvantages . Small-scale production is often technically more efficient than large-scale production, but at the same time it is usually not very productive because there is a lack of access to technologies and economies of scale can be realized less often.
Smallholder agriculture is closely linked to poverty because of its mostly low productivity . 50% of all hungry people worldwide are smallholders. Due to the lack of alternatives, it is the most important source of income for a large part of the population in many developing countries , especially in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia .
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Individual evidence
- ↑ Theodore W. Schultz : "poor but efficient"
- ↑ World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. The World Bank, Washington, DC 2007. (PDF; 7.2 MB)
- ↑ M. Städer, G. Falk: protect rightly small farmers - an international convention is needed. (PDF; 402 kB) 2012.
- ^ G. Norton, J. Alwang, W. Masters: The Economics of Agricultural Development. Routledge, New York 2006.