The smallholder’s dream of a livelihood

Smallholders are rural cultivators of small plots within densely populated areas practicing permanent, diversified agriculture (Netting, 1993) and they typically practice subsistence farming, but some portion of their yields is often sold within the local economy.  It is a livelihood that is highlighted in a positive light in academia for its resilience, sustainability, and it ability to provide for so much of the world population.  However from the point of view of the smallholder, or even more the children of a smallholder, is this the livelihood that they want? Is this model truly sustainable in the sense of human development?

The typical smallholder enterprise is made of the family unit, with parents, children, and in some cases others with kinship relationships.  Unlike the western family unit, built strengthen by blood relationships or shared experiences; the smallholder family unit is strengthen by work (Netting, 1993).  The family works together to survive making most everything they need, which forms indebtedness to each other. This intergenerational connection is where the model derives it strengthens of sustainability.

Smallholder model of livelihood is often associated with underdeveloped nations, but in many ways the sustainability aspects of the model follows what developed nations have been working for as outlined in the Brundtland Report, or  “meting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own” (Brundtland et al., 1987, p. 43).  The aspect of intergenerational indebtedness of parents and children instills a sense of protecting of the environments ability to provide livelihoods. The people in this model have a connection to the environment that does not exist in the western world.

While smallholder model is associated with rural livelihoods in undeveloped regions, it has a role in urbanizations and it has been transposed into urban areas migrating with people into cities. For example, within the cities of the Brazilian Amazon, urban gardening is providing an informal system of production, exchange, and knowledge important for survival (WinklerPrins and Souza, 2005). Despites 70% of Brazilian populations living in urban places (IBGE, 2002), urban economies have not developed at a rate to keep up with urbanizations leading to ‘over-urbanized’ regions (Browder and Godfrey, 1997; WinklerPrins and Souza, 2005).  Smallholders tactics are helping in survival of this transition population providing livelihoods when the formal economy has failed.

There is a lot to learn from smallholder model of livelihoods, but it is not the ideal model.  The model can be romanticized in academia much like Voltaire’s Candide, where it is “best to cultivate our garden”, where the beaten optimist at the end disengages with the world and is self-reliant.  Smallholder model is seen in positive light by academics living a far in the western world trying to find solutions for the world ills like Candide did, but when not finding they resort to the same conclusion to disengage and farm.  The evidence of mass migration of young people into the cities throughout the world shows that the dream of a better life is not in the smallholder model, and the disruption of indebtedness of the intergenerational ties by globalization forces creates a need for a new model for continued survival of billions of people.

Works Cited

Browder, J. O. and B. J. Godfrey. 1997. Rainforest Cities: Urbanization, Development, and

Globalization of the Brazilian Amazon. New York: Columbia University Press.

Brundtland, G. H. (1987). Report of the World Commission on environment and development:" our common future.". United Nations.

IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica). 2002. Tabulação Avançada do Censo Demografico 2000 – Resultados Preliminares da Amostra. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE.

Netting, R. M. (1993). Smallholders, householders: farm families and the ecology of intensive, sustainable agriculture. Stanford University Press.

WinklerPrins, A. M., & de Souza, P. S. (2005). Surviving the city: urban home gardens and the economy of affection in the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Latin American Geography, 4(1), 107-126.