This remains true even after several decades of growth in urban populations. As of 2010, the UN Food and Agriculture organization (FAO) reported that 58.8 per cent of the total sub-Saharan workforce was in agriculture and a slightly higher proportion (63.6 per cent) of the total population was in rural areas. Smallholder agriculture is also and particularly a source of livelihoods for women. Although women make up little more than half the agricultural workforce, women are more likely to work in agriculture than in other sectors.
Thus, agriculture is the main source of employment for almost two thirds of economically active African women. Very few women work in the wage labour market; almost all are working in smallholder production. Almost all the agricultural workforce is employed in smallholder production systems rather than large farms, although there is no conceptually clear way to define ‘small farms’ or ‘smallholder agriculture’. However, it is clear that most African agriculture takes place on a small scale. For instance, the vast majority of crop farms are smaller than five hectares and evidence from numerous household surveys supports the idea that the median size of a crop farm is probably between one and two hectares in most of the countries with available data. In most African countries, smallholders are variously defined in the literature in terms of the land area of the farm, the number of workers, the value of output, or the value of asset holdings. Different definitions make sense in different production systems. For instance, a definition based on land area does not necessarily make sense for a commercial poultry or dairy farm that may produce very high values with essentially no land. Conversely, the land measure may also overstate the ‘farm size’ of a herder.
The small land area of these farms should not obscure their importance in livelihood strategies. Small farms are not only sources of employment; they are also, perhaps obviously, sources of food and sustenance. Although there is enormous heterogeneity across sub- Saharan Africa, many smallholder families produce a large fraction of the household’s food; and conversely,
Much of their agricultural output is consumed within the household. Household surveys from African countries generally show high rates of household consumption of agricultural produce. For instance, in Rwanda, only half the grain production enters market channels; the rest is consumed within producing households. Similarly, households sell only 30 per cent of the roots and tubers produced and less than 10 per cent of the beans. This is not unique to Rwanda; the same pattern holds in Uganda, for instance, where two thirds of the cooking bananas (known locally as matoke, and an important staple food) and three quarters of the cassava are consumed in the producing households.
In northern Ghana, about 80 per cent of the production of maize – the single most important crop – is consumed by the households that produce it, along with three quarters of the sorghum and half the yams.
As noted above, most African agriculture takes place in smallholder systems. Very few farms employ large numbers of hired workers; the exceptions are large plantations that produce tea, rubber and a few other export crops. As a result, most of the workers in the agricultural sector in Africa are self-employed or own-account workers; very few are employees. Although relatively few countries report these data, the figures are striking in those countries that do. For instance, averaged over the period from 2001 to 2010, only 1.2 per cent of the agricultural workforce in Benin consisted of employees, as defined by the International Labour organisation (12,000 out of nearly one million).
A Guest Editorial