Development Focus: Farming and Extreme Working Poverty

In many of the lowest-ranked HDI countries, farming provides more than two thirds of all jobs and over three quarters of export earnings.

Agriculture is also the dominant sector of employment for women. It is 96% of employment in Burundi, 84% in Rwanda and 77% in Uganda.

Country in Focus: Burundi

Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world with an HDI ranking of 185. Over 90 percent of employment is in agriculture. And one third of children aged 5-17 years are in work. Nearly nine people in ten of those in work live on less than $3.20 a day (PPP).

Burundi tops Christian Aid's food-insecurity table. It is highly dependent on small-scale agriculture, which employs around 90% of its workforce. Its farmers are vulnerable to the increasing number - and severity - of droughts, floods and other extreme weather events caused by climate change.

The Farming Yield Gap

• Some development economists talk about “yield gap.”
• This is the difference in bushels per acre between developed and emerging-country farms.
• Yields can be 5-10 times greater for farms in advanced countries
• And in many LEDCs, farmers get a tiny percentage of the final market price for their farm output

The challenge of raising productivity in the lowest income countries

Agriculture accounts for 32% of Africa’s gross domestic product. In countries such as Burundi, Burkina Faso, and Madagascar, more than 80 percent of the labour force works in agriculture. In some countries more than 90 percent of economically active women work in agriculture.

1. Raising productivity in farming is essential to reducing extreme poverty in many of the least economically developed countries.
2. Foreign direct investment into farming might help accelerate this process.
3. It is also important for countries highly dependent on farming to increase the value added that comes from growing and selling agricultural output
4. There are big challenges – including rapid population growth and deforestation leading to soil erosion leading to high food insecurity

This is one of the best articles you will read on development economics!

"Ghana supplies about one-fifth of all cocoa beans, for which it earns about $2bn a year, less than one-fiftieth of the value of the chocolate that is manufactured, branded and sold."