The economic and social weight of small scale agriculture. Evidence from the Rural Income Generating Activities survey data.

In current economic reality, there seems to be a clear need to recognize, characterize and place small scale agriculture in a setup which accounts for novel trends in the modes of doing business in the global economy and with respect to the changing role of agriculture along development transition. Providing that ground it will make it possible to design and promote appropriate policy strategies that will best accommodate small scale farmers’ needs and exploit their potential for agricultural development. The present paper employs a multi country household survey database developed from ESA-FAO, and a series of ad hoc land thresholds to categorize rural households as small or large scale farmers and identify some of their key characteristics as well as their economic weight in the rural as well as the national economy