Sustainable Agriculture A Summary of Sida's experiences and priorities

Description:
This is one of four similar papers written within the Department for Natural Resources and the Environment (DNRE) during 1997 - 1999 as inputs into a process intended to result in a policy document for Sidas work in natural resources management. The other three papers deal with water resources management, forestry and rural development methodology respectively. Inevitably, there is some overlap between the papers, in particular between the present paper and the one on rural development methodology. However, in so far as this reflects the commonality of approach that one would expect within Sida it is not considered to be of material importance.
Much attention is being given these days within Sida to poverty eradication. Yet there is little reference to agriculture although it is well known that agriculture dominates the economies of most of Sidas partner countries, and that raising agricultural productivity is a key area for reducing poverty. One objective of this paper is therefore to resurrect the importance of agriculture in Sidas internal discourse and to refocus on the importance of efforts to improve the incomes of small farmers as part of the broader agenda of sustainable management of natural resources and indeed of poverty eradication.