Working Paper 105 - Smallholder Agriculture in East Africa: Trends, Constraints and Opportunities

Abstract

Smallholder agriculture continues to play akey role in African agriculture. This paperinvestigates trends, challenges andopportunities of this sub-sector in EastAfrica through case studies of Kenya,Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. In theseagriculture-based economies, smallholderfarming accounts for about 75 percent ofagricultural production and over 75 percentof employment. However, contributions ofsmallholder farming, and agriculture ingeneral, to the region’s recent rapid growthduring 2005 - 08 have remained limited.Instead, growth was driven by services, inparticular trade. This paper finds that at thenational level, weak institutions, restrictedaccess to markets and credit. These factors,including inadequate infrastructure, haveconstrained productivity growth ofsmallholder farming. Measures needed toimprove productivity of smallholder farmersinclude ease of access to land, training toenhance skills and encourage technologyadoption and innovation, and removal ofobstacles to trade. At the regional and globallevels, international trade barriers need to beaddressed.