专业英语—农业.doc

In agriculture, small is beautiful Investing in small farmers brings a developmental double whammy, helping to put food into circulation while also boosting the income of some of the poorest people on the planet. Small farmers get a bad press: developing country governments often see them as a throwback, and hanker after the glitter of modernity that surrounds large-scale investment in biofuels or export crops. Aid agencies and donor governments with more money than staff prefer the scale the big farms can offer. But there are at least two good reasons why, when it comes to agriculture, small is still beautiful. First, investing in small farmers brings a developmental double whammy: it helps put food into circulation and at the same time boosts the income of some of the poorest people on the planet – small farmers. It is an enduring and horrible irony that the people who grow the food are often also the ones who go hungry, because their crops are too paltry, or prices too low, for their harvest to see them through the year. Jobless agribusiness growth wont help those people; boosting small farm output will. Second, helping small farmers get access to the kinds of things big farmers take for granted – bank loans, technical support, land rights – can have a catalytic effect on their productivity. Forget all those myths about stick-in-the-mud peasants – most small farmers are businesspeople, keen to experiment, manage risk, break into new markets and better themselves. That goes particularly for female farmers, who in many countries grow most of the food but have least access to such support. Worldwide, providing female farmers with equal rights to land and agricultural support could feed up to 150 million additional people. Heres one example from dozens in Oxfams work around the world. Small-farmers supply 67% of the food consumed in Colombias capital, Bogotá (population: 7 million), but they dont earn a decent price for their produce. Much of the produce sold in urba