Faculty Research Miguel A. Altieri and Clara I. Nicholls "The Third Way: Reaching Latin American Poor Farmers with Agroecological Approaches"

Miguel A. Altieri and Clara I. Nicholls
Division of Insect Biology
Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management
University of California, Berkeley

A reconstructed ancient Inca farming system: waru-warus in Puno, Peru

The Need for a New Pro-Poor Agricultural Development Path

Despite many agricultural development projects throughout Latin America, most resource-poor farmers of the region have gained very little from modern agricultural science and the processes of technology transfer known as the Green Revolution. The problem is that new technologies, including bioengineered crops, are not scale-neutral. The usual story is that farmers with the larger and better-endowed lands gain the most, whereas farmers with fewer resources often lose. Not only are new technologies inappropriate for poor farmers, but peasants are excluded from access to credit, information, technical support and other services that would help them use and adapt new technologies if they so desired. Although some studies have shown spread of high-yielding varieties among small farmers in certain areas, income disparities remain and often become accentuated.

By the end of the 20th century we can therefore conclude that the modernization of agriculture has not solved massive rural poverty nor has it improved the food security of the poor, especially those in the remote rural areas. One thing that is clear...(download the paper as an Acrobat .pdf file)