Marginal farmers: a review of the literature

This review presents the case for supporting marginal farmers, identifies the constraints and challenges they face and provides a series of recommendations to become more food secure. The review has defined marginal farmers as those who belong to food poor households with farming as a major livelihood activity and those who hold few assets, have limited access to resources and services, and experience poor market linkages.<br /><br />The authors target the needs of marginal farmers and argue that their voices are central to any policy approaches aimed at tackling hunger and poverty in rural areas. With this mission, the review has identified the following policy recommendations that are critical to the potential of marginal farmers to contribute to agriculture growth and thereby move them out of poverty. The options are:<br /> provide access to the land put the needs of poor farmers at the heart of governments agriculture policy and encourage involvement of marginal farmers in the formulation and development of agricultural policies and programmes advance interventions to improve food markets together with service provision for staple crop production support the strengthening of the capacity of poor farmers to participate in decisions that affect them support investments (research and infrastructure) that provide poor farmers with the services and support they need to become food secure and more resilient to livelihood shocks stabilize and augment non-farm income sources as a survival mechanism to diversify out of agriculture into a more remunerative enterprise for the poor households support and pursue a social protection agenda aimed at protecting and promoting rural livelihoods<br />In conclusion, this review suggests that agricultural production is likely to remain an important livelihood activity for marginal farmers due to a lack of alternative rural livelihoods and limited opportunities. If increased attention to policy and investment to support smallholder agriculture are not provided to these marginal farmers, there is a strong risk that the majority of benefits will accrue to better off farm households that are more attractive propositions for service providers and respond better to market opportunities.