ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses such questions as how do detailed studies of rural households and farming systems help to elucidate the role of agriculture in economic development? It argues that micro-level studies of African farmers, farming systems and outlines rural households can contribute to a critical assessment of the macro-economic arguments and to the prospects for policy reform. To be useful for macroanalysis, micro-studies must look not only at production methods and price responses but also at the social organization of resource acquisition and resource allocation. Micro-studies of farming systems and household processes have contributed significantly to our understanding of the environmental and technical conditions of agricultural production in Africa. In general, people gain access to productive resources by making claims on property and productive services. Predicting farmers' responses to policy interventions and tracing their effects on agricultural performance involve more than taking an inventory of those social relations which impose different constraints on different categories of farmer.
