An African woman bent under the sun,
weeding sorghum in an arid fi eld with a
hoe, a child strapped on her back—a vivid
image of rural poverty. For her large family
and millions like her, the meager bounty
of subsistence farming is the only chance
to survive. But others, women and men,
have pursued different options to escape
poverty. Some smallholders join producer
organizations and contract with exporters
and supermarkets to sell the vegetables
they produce under irrigation. Some work
as laborers for larger farmers who meet the
scale economies required to supply modern
food markets. Still others, move into
the rural nonfarm economy, starting small
enterprises selling processed foods.
While the worlds of agriculture are vast,
varied, and rapidly changing, with the right
policies and supportive investments at local,
national, and global levels, today’s agriculture
offers new opportunities to hundreds
of millions of rural poor to move out of
poverty. Pathways out of poverty open to
them by agriculture include smallholder
farming and animal husbandry, employment
in the “new agriculture” of high-value
products, and entrepreneurship and jobs in
the emerging rural, nonfarm economy.