At the Mid of Polarity: Rethinking Medium Farms as Solution to Vulnerability for Small-scale Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Strategies to increase agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa have mostly been thought to occur through one of the two predominant pathways: large-scale commercial production or intensification of small holder plots. Considerable efforts have been made to further each of these two strategies. It is clear, therefore, that the efforts to go beyond such polarized academic debate on the key challenges to farm size in relation to food productivity is still wanting. Such polarization of the debate presents the obvious problem of limiting solutions by obscuring those that fall in the middle. It is in such a context that the argument for the expansion of medium-scale farming is lost. This article brings alive the lost in the debate about the expansion of medium scale farmers. Arguing from transitional model, the article reimagine medium farms as solution to vulnerability of small scale farmers and their food productivity.