Small farms and development in sub-Saharan Africa: Farming for food, for income or for lack of better options?

Abstract

Most food in sub-Saharan Africa is produced on small farms. Using large datasets from household surveys conducted across many countries, we find that the majority of farms are less than 1 ha, much smaller than previous estimates. Farms are larger in farming systems in drier climates. Through a detailed analysis of food self-sufficiency, food and nutrition security, and income among households from divergent farming systems in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda, we reveal marked contrasts in food security and household incomes. In the south of Mali, where cotton is an important cash crop, almost all households are food secure, and almost half earn a living income. Yet, in a similar agroecological environment in northern Ghana, only 10% of households are food secure and none earn a living income. Surprisingly, the extent of food insecurity and poverty is almost as great in densely-populated locations in the Ethiopian and Tanzanian highlands that are characterised by much better soils and two cropping seasons a year. Where populations are less dense, such as in South-west Uganda, a larger proportion of the households are food self-sufficient and poverty is less prevalent. In densely-populated Central Malawi, a combination of a single cropping season a year and small farms results in a strong incidence of food insecurity and poverty. These examples reveal a strong interplay between population density, farm size, market access, and agroecological potential on food security and household incomes. Within each location, farm size is a major determinant of food self-sufficiency and a household’s ability to rise above the living income threshold. Closing yield gaps strongly increases the proportion of households that are food self-sufficient. Yet in four of the locations (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana and Malawi), land is so constraining that only 42–53% of households achieve food self-sufficiency, and even when yield gaps are closed only a small proportion of households can achieve a living income. While farming remains of central importance to household food security and income, our results help to explain why off-farm employment is a must for many. We discuss these results in relation to sub-Saharan Africa’s increasing population, likely agricultural expansion, and agriculture’s role in future economic development.

It’s time to harvest! : Towards sustainable farming systems in the East African highlands

“…In other areas where land is relatively more abundant, such as in Busia, current fallow land can be used to increase farm area, as we found. The use of fallow land in Busia, partly fits in a wider trend in SSA of increasing cultivated land area, resulting in extensification instead of (sustainable) intensification on land currently in use (Giller et al, 2021;Jayne and Sanchez, 2021). However, these trends of extensification are often the result of the increasing smallholder farming population and new groups of large land owners going into farming (Sitko and Jayne, 2014).…”

“…in South-East Asia and China, similar problems occurred when cropping systems intensified and Nitrogen (N) use increased (Zhang et al, 2015). In SSA, increased agricultural production has mainly come from expanding crop land instead of intensified production (Giller et al, 2021;Jayne and Sanchez, 2021), which leads to increased pressure on important natural ecosystems (Baudron and Giller, 2014). 'Sustainable intensification' has therefore been proposed as a new paradigm for agricultural production, both for highly intensified systems, e.g.…”

“…recently adapted the methodology for application in smallholder farming systems that are more focussed on staple crops. This allows benchmarking of current farmer incomes against the living income as was done by Giller et al (2021), using large scale survey data. So far, however, this has not yet been done using measured farm level data that can give a detailed insight into farm or household level opportunities and constraints.…”

“…Small farm sizes make this poverty trap a double poverty trap as farmers may not only be in this current vicious cycle of low productivity, but are also limited by their farm area to have substantial benefits if productivity would increase (Giller et al, 2021). Current household welfare is linked to farm size (Frelat et al, 2016).…”

“…Current household welfare is linked to farm size (Frelat et al, 2016). The limited potential benefits that can be argued at farm level have been shown both from larger studies across multiple countries (Gassner et al, 2019;Giller et al, 2021;Harris and Orr, 2014) as well as more detailed work based on farm typologies in a country or region (e.g. Falconnier et al, 2018;Leonardo et al, 2018).…”