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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Rural Poverty and Poverty Alleviation in Mozambique: What's Missing from the Debate
Authors:Cramer, ChristopherISNI
Pontara, Nicola
Year:1998
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:36
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:101-138
Language:English
Geographic term:Mozambique
Subjects:rural poverty
Economics and Trade
economics
Labor and Employment
agriculture
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/161639
Abstract:The challenge of rural poverty as a policy priority in Mozambique has provoked an increase in work on the characteristics of the rural poor and on the policy implications. This article criticizes what the authors argue to be an overemphasis in the literature on the prioritization of smallholder agricultural development. In particular, the authors take issue with the characterization of the rural poor in Mozambique in terms of the isolation and lack of differentiation of the peasantry. Second, the authors underline the potential significance of two factors whose role and implications are neglected in the literature: the importance of farm wage labour income for the survival of the poorest Mozambicans (especially female-headed or female-dominated households), and the extent to which rural-rural labour migration may be stimulated by the availability of wage employment opportunities on farms. For illustrative purposes, the article makes use of a small case study conducted in the district of Chokwe in December 1996 and January 1997. The aim of the study was to gather data chiefly on female seasonal labourers on the cotton fields of the Lonrho Mozambique Agricultural Company (Lomaco), a joint venture between Lonrho and the Mozambican government. Notes, ref. (Comment by M. Anne Pitcher in: The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 37, no. 4 (1999), p. 697-709, with a reply by the authors on p. 711-722.)
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