Until the early 90s, mainstream development policies have addressed the improvement of rural livelihoods in two complementary manners. On one hand, incentives and assistance have been made available to increase small farming outputs through Green Revolution technology; on the other hand, following the “industry first” imperative, employment opportunities have been created to transfer rural labor surplus outside small-scale farming. Both policies were rooted in a representation of development as an increase in absolute economic growth made possible by intensification of production, economy of scale and market expansion (Escobar 1995).
This approach has resulted only partially successful. Though the prevalence of hunger and poverty in rural areas of most regions (except Africa) has significantly decreased over the last forty years, it is estimated that at the end of the millennium about 800 million rural people were still affected by undernourishment and more than 1.2 billion lived below the international poverty line (Dixon, Gulliver and Gibbon 2001). Moreover, since the late 80s, a growing body of evidence has been produced indicating that unsustainable development has often implied unbearable environmental and social costs for both developed and developing countries.
Following these considerations and experiences carried out in previous decades, a major shift in rural development paradigm has taken place during the 90s. Equity and sustainability have been added to economic growth as major focuses of policies and increasing attention has been paid to rural people’s spontaneous adaptation to socio-economic change. By advocating a re-valorization of the contribution that people’s coping behavior can give to sustainable development and by calling policy makers attention to the need for a more equitable distribution of resources and opportunities, the concept of sustainable livelihoods (Chambers and Conway 1991) epitomizes this shift. Indeed, sustainable livelihood security (that includes food security) is nowadays increasingly seen as a promising strategy to address the challenges of the 21st century.
Roughly in the same period, the debt crisis and the subsequent structural re-adjustment policies have stopped the flow of governmental subsidies that made it possible for small farmers to take part in the Green Revolution. The “human face” counterpart of such withdrawal of public assistance to small farming has often take the shape of people-oriented local development policies aimed at stimulating participatory, proactive and entrepreneurial behaviors among farmers. Under favorable circumstances, these policies have led to the enhancement rural household capability to identify and exploit market niches for agricultural and non-agricultural commodities and services and amenities that can be efficiently (and sustainably) produced by micro rural enterprises (e.g. Orsini 2000). Moreover, new rural social movements have incorporated small-scale production of “organic”, “green”, or “typical” goods in their strategies to sustain local identity claims (e.g. Désmarais 2002). These trends have contributed in making development professionals increasingly aware of the role that small rural enterprises can play in enhancing rural livelihood security and decreasing some negative externalities of economic growth (environmental impact, urban migration, social and cultural disruption).
Recent research has addressed the development of small rural enterprises in the framework of a more comprehensive analysis of the way in which agricultural intensification and off-farm diversification have combined each other in orienting rural people adaptive response to short-and long-term environmental, economic-political and socio-cultural change. This approach seems very promising to disentangle some factors involved in making viable and successful the promotion of small rural enterprises as a means to achieve more sustainable rural livelihoods. This paper will summarize and discuss in brief some of the issues arising from this body of research.
