AGRICULTURAL

TRANSFORMATION AND
RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Agricultural Transformation

■ A process that leads to higher productivity on farms, commercially orients farming,

and strengthens the link between farming and other sectors of the economy.
Rural Development

■ Rural development is a process integrated with economic and social objectives,

which must seek to transform rural society and provide a better and more secure
livelihood for rural people. Rural development, therefore, is a process of analysis,
problem identification and the proposal of relevant solutions. This process is usually
encompassed within a program or a project which seeks to tackle the problem
identified.
■ Rural development as a social goal has long been given major attention by
politicians and policymakers in the Philippines. This is reflected in the concern
frequently expressed about rural problems and the plethora of laws and institutions
that have been created to deal with them.
■ The dominant production activity in the rural sector is of course agriculture
■ The "dynamics of rural development" represents a key element of the overall
development process that can provide the basis for a self-sustaining and equitable
economic growth
Focusing Rural Development
■ There are very strong reasons why resources should now be put into rural
development.
– More than half the people of the world and the vast majority of the people in
developing countries live in rural areas and gain part or all of their livelihoods
from some form of agriculture.
– Most of these people are also still very poor and dependent on agricultural
practices that have benefited little from modern technology.
– They live in isolated and often inhospitable places, with little access to the
resources they need to improve their agriculture. Many lead their lives barely at
subsistence level.
– Solely in terms of numbers of people, there is a very strong case for giving high
priority to rural development.
BASIC ISSUES
Physical Problems

■ Lack of water
■ Poor infrastructures
■ Lack of health facilities
■ Soil Erosion
■ Energy Cost
■ Technologies
Non-Physical Problems

■ Social and Political Conditions

– Limited access to land
– No contact with government services
– Dependence upon a bigger farmer
– Little access to the resources necessary for development, nor any way of
getting such resources.
■ Growing Global Demand
■ Climate Change
■ Satisfy consumers’ changing tastes and expectations
Rich v.s. Poor Competition

■ Marketing chains are changing and are becoming more integrated and more
demanding of quality and food safety. This is creating new opportunities for higher
value production for farmers who can compete and link to these markets, but for
many other small farms the risk is that they will simply be left behind.
– Small farmers face unfair competition from rich country farmers in many of
their export and domestic markets, and they no longer have adequate support
in terms of basic services and farm inputs.
Investing for development

■ Small farmers face a range of weather, disease, pest and market related risks that
discourage them from investing more in major land improvements and from
adopting more profitable technologies and crop and livestock activities.
– In order to cope with these risks, farmers and rural societies have developed a
range of risk management measures but these measures offer only limited
protection against catastrophic weather events like droughts or market
collapses.
Inspire young people to stay in rural areas
and become future farmers
■ Small-scale agriculture is the developing world's single biggest source of
employment, and with the necessary support it can offer a sustainable and
productive alternative to the expansion of large-scale, capital-intensive, labour-
displacing corporate farming.
– This, however, assumes a generation of young rural men and women who want
to be small farmers, while mounting evidence suggests that young people are
uninterested in farming or in rural futures.