ABSTRACT
In how far was the small peasant approach to eliminate rural poverty really pursued by internationally operating agencies? Data from the global level suggest that there was not only a change in rhetorics but many agencies shifted some development funding to agriculture. However, far from all of this, money was for poverty-oriented projects, as shown for the ‘World Bank’, USAID, IFAD and FAO. Also, agencies had structural problems to ‘reach the poor’, in managing complex integrated rural development projects, and tended to cooperate on the ground with local rural elites instead of their ‘target’ population. Thus, many rural development programs and projects had detrimental effects on poverty levels, and some didn’t raise production either. By the 1980s, further perspectives for the small peasant approach (including land reform) were lacking, and progress to reduce hunger and poverty had been marginal. Measures for food security (nutrition programs, building reserves and early warning systems) were always trailing far behind production-oriented steps in terms of funding and thought. The 1980s policies of raising agricultural producer prices and privatizing the grain trade were compatible with the small peasant approach but disadvantaged rural net grain consumers, especially wage earners.
