FAO
FSN Forum

CONSULTATION No. 143   •   FSN Forum digest No. 1313

Rural migration, agriculture and rural development

until 12 October 2017

iconHow to participate

Send your contribution to
FSN-moderator@fao.org
or post it on the
FSN Forum website www.fao.org/fsnforum


© FAO

Dear Members,

We are happy to share with you the first contributions received to the online consultation Rural migration, agriculture and rural development.

With this consultation, we invite you to comment on the draft annotated outline of the 2018 edition of the State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA), one of FAO's annual flagship publications. Next year, the report will focus on the drivers and impacts of rural migration, and explore the linkages between rural migration flows and agricultural and rural development.

Please share with us your thoughts on the draft outline and the issues that you think should be included in the publication. We also look forward to receiving your experiences and other sources of information that could be useful for the preparation of the report.

For a full introduction to the topic in English, French or Spanish and to read the annotated outline of the report, please refer to the webpage. You can post your contributions directly online upon registration, or send them to FSN-moderator@fao.org.

Your FSN Forum team

CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED

iconJohn Weatherhogg, formerly FAO, Italy

John refers to Chapter 4, paragraph 4.1 of the report's draft outline on "changes towards less labour-intensive practices", and argues that it is important to recognize that these changes often result in shifts in cropping patterns. He mentions examples of situations in which farmers are encouraged to grow less rice in order to conserve water; however, success has been limited, because growing paddy is attractive as it requires minimum attention and gives people the possibility to also carry out off-farm work.

Read the contribution

iconFlavio Bolliger, FAO, Italy

Flavio highlights that there is no internationally accepted definition of "rural areas", and that a lack of consistency hinders comparability of rural indicators across countries and reduces the usefulness of indicators for national governments. He points to the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, which has been implemented with the aim to develop a framework and cost-effective methods to help countries produce rural statistics. In addition, the goal is to develop a proposal for an international definition of rural areas and degrees of rurality for statistical purposes.

Read the contribution

iconCatherine Marquette, IFAD, Italy

In an initial reaction to the report's outline, Catherine argues that the relationship between agricultural and rural development and migration has been receiving significant attention in research over the last decades. In relation to this, she suggests consulting the UN Population Division during the drafting process of the SOFA outline.  

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iconLaura Schenck, FAO, Italy

Laura posts information on a technical workshop on the drivers and impacts of migration and labour mobility that will be held in at FAO in Rome in December 2017. FAO is inviting the submission of papers to be presented during the workshop.

Visit the webpage of the workshop

iconBruno Dorin, CIRAD, France

Bruno shares two papers on the case of India. The publications focus on economic development and the structural transformation of economies and the issues of land constraints and jobless growth, which, Bruno argues, are currently disregarded by theories of economic development and rural-urban migration.

Read the first and second paper

iconOlamiju Olayinka, Nigeria

Olamiju points to the role of development assistance and effective governance in boosting incomes and increasing people’s economic security.

Read the contribution
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