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supporting smallholders after recognising that, in spite of lack of investment in the sector over decades, small-
scale producers still contributed 66 per cent of agricultural production as well as 36 per cent of agricultural GDP,
according to central bank data. In-depth studies of small- scale farmers’ contribution to the national and local
economies, carried out by national civil society organisations such as CIPRES, helped to push the case for small-scale
producers in the national policy matrix.
5.2 Policies not supporting economic interests of
small-scale producers
When small-scale producers have little agency in policy processes, it is no surprise to see problems in the resulting
instruments or in the way programmes are implemented. These may try to reach out to smallholders without meeting
their real business needs, or may end up putting smallholders second to large, modernised and politically vocal producers.
Figure 5.1, used by Galleguillos in the Learning Network to evaluate agricultural policies in Bolivia, suggests some of the
ways these policies can fail small farmers. Policy frameworks and development strategies may fail to understand and
respond to the needs of smallholders in the irst place ‘irrationality’, in Figure 5.1. This would include policies
inherently biased towards large producers, or those that fail to differentiate the speciic interests of smaller farms. There
can also be problems with designing instruments in line with policy goals incoherence or with implementing them to get
the desired results ineffectiveness.
5.2.1 Bias in trade agreements, national and local policy
Studies in almost all the Learning Network countries looked at recent regional free trade agreements FTAs, which have
proliferated across the developing world in the last two decades. These agreements are usually seen as essential to
national development in general and rural development in particular, as Guharay noted in Learning Network research on
Nicaragua. But the country lacks policies advocated by small farmers’ and workers’ organisations that would soften the
harshest impacts of these agreements on small farmers. For larger players both inside and outside developing countries,
FTAs have met demands to facilitate trade, investment and extraction of natural resources. For small-scale producers,
they have also brought price volatility and inluxes of cheap agricultural products grown in other countries with subsidies
and other advantageous economic conditions.
These problems are not necessarily being offset by new opportunities in regional or global markets. Mugoya’s
Learning Network study of maize trade in the East Africa Community’s common market concluded that farmers aren’t
seeing higher prices as a result of cross-border trade, and that increased regional maize trading is probably driven
more by demand than by the FTA. In a case study of the Muki dairy cooperative, Mugoya observed that the regional
free trade area appears to affect this Kenyan farmers’ organisation mainly by strengthening the position of a major
competitor. Unlike Muki, Brookside Dairies, a large private milk processor, already has a line of powdered milk and
other technically sophisticated products with long shelf lives suitable for long-distance trade.
Society
Action
Small-scale producer needs and problems
Impacts
Development strategy
Public policies Instruments
Results
Rationality Coherence
Effectiveness
Evaluation
Source: Osuna and Márquez 2000
56
Box 5.3 Treating small farmers like large farmers
‘All-round development’ in India.
In the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, India addressed its
growing reliance on food imports by promoting water- and capital-intensive technologies to raise yields of rice
and wheat. As government extension services became standardised around the Green Revolution varieties and
techniques, they beneited only larger farms in the few Indian states with ample irrigation infrastructure.
The country’s New Agriculture Policy, a major attempt at agricultural reform in 2000, states growth, sustainability,
eficiency and equity as its goals — but never mentions the speciic needs of smallholders. ‘All-round
development’ of agriculture is a key objective, relecting a uniform view of the sector. Arya and Asthana argued
in the Learning Network that if the policy explicitly recognised that 80 per cent of India’s cultivators have
small-scale, marginal farms, it would have to look at how to tailor technologies, policies and institutions to
this context. Instead, they write, the framework ‘fails to recognise that smallholder agriculture requires speciic
solutions in terms of farm inputs and social support systems.’
Misfit extension services in Uganda and Bolivia. When Uganda irst designed an ambitious new
extension service, NAADS see Box 5.2, they took an omnibus approach without speciic support for the
needs of small-scale producers. The result was that this government assistance readily reached larger farms but
left many smallholders unaware that NAADS exists. In Learning Network discussions, Muñoz pointed
out similarities with Bolivia’s state-driven technology assistance. These programmes are often funded and
advised by international donors and modelled on extension services in wealthy countries where big
agriculture dominates. Galleguillos added that the Bolivian state promotes a type of famer’s organisation
based on specialising in a single commodity — a practice of many large farms, but few small ones.
When governments assume that what works for large producers will work just as well at smaller scale,
smallholders lose out.
Notably, Uganda is now rethinking this assumption in its revamped ‘NAADS 2’ programme. Rwakakamba
pointed out that unlike the irst NAADS, this one aims to improve food security by speciically targeting
subsistence farmers, offering cassava cuttings, tools and other basic inputs.
Furthermore, while some agricultural commodities receive special treatment under trade agreements, those grown
mainly by the smallest farms with the weakest political voice are apt to get short-changed. In Guatemala, for
instance, Monterroso noted that the sugar sector, dominated by big agribusiness, has been given speciic protection.
Maize, in contrast, is a smallholder crop, and its trade has been completely liberalised — allowing imports to surge in
from subsidised growers in the United States.
Smallholder-grown commodities are equally neglected at the national level in some Learning Network countries. As
seen with industrial chambers of commerce, big-commodity interests have powerful lobbying organisations, and subsidies
often go to these crops rather than to maize, millet, and other staples of rural communities. In some countries such as
India, there are politicians who claim a farming background, but in effect directly represent large farms, subsidised
commodities and cash crops. The situation is similar for other policy sectors where small-scale producers need support,
such as in water infrastructure, isheries and forestry. The inluence of large interests can play, out locally as well, in
tensions over access to and control of local natural resources. The interests of small farmers and other residents are often
pitted against those of transnational oil, gas, mining or agribusiness companies, and these territorial battles affect
the implementation of laws and local policies on resource management, as well as decisions about how to provide
services and for whom.
5.2.2 Policies fail to differentiate between small- and large-scale
