Stories harvested in Farmers Fighting Poverty: February 2007

Abaca Farming: Agri agencies converge for abaca farmers

Farmer-led development in the Third World

This blog illustrates and comment on the possibility of development with a dominant influence of the peasantry. Social sciences when dwelling on an eventual via campesina to development have produced convincing social criticism, as well as a body of evidence demonstrating the micro-economic advantages in productivity of small farmers. However, this has not swayed policy makers to take into account the contributions of farmers in economic development. A peasant development path is built on full participation of the peasantry in decision making and development planning, together with government and other social sectors, at all levels by virtue of their organization from local up to national and international level. It allows development to take place not only with the material contribution of small farmers to (state-led and urbanized) industrialisation, but with farmers being the key players in the structural transformation of the economy, the transition of a predominantly agrarian economy into a modern one with manufacture and service industries.