The increasing dependency of a large number of rural poor people on marginal farmland has exacerbated environmental degradation. Rosegrant and Hazell (2000) confirm the occurrence of such environmental problems in the region. The degradation of environmental and natural resources is a real threat for the sustainability of agriculture. Accordingly, the future of agriculture in the region can only be secured if rural poverty is effectively alleviated; a target agricultural diversification can specifically contribute to.

What is Agricultural Diversification?
Agricultural diversification is not a new farming practice in developing countries (Francis, 1986). However, it has faced rapid declining in Asia and the Pacific, since governments have placed priority on expanding one main staple food crop (notably rice) in their attempt to achieve food self-sufficiency.

According to Hedley (1987), agricultural diversification may be classified into three types, namely horizontal, vertical and regional diversification. The first essentially deals with activities at the farm level, its functions being either stabilizing or improving farm income. Vertical diversification concerns improving a product's value added through the integration of off-farm activities with on-farm activities (Lynam, Sanders and Mason, 1986).

Regional diversification relates to specialization. When each region specializes in particular crops, agriculture becomes diversified from a national perspective. Its rationale rests on the concept of comparative advantage formulated by Ricardo.

Matching Agricultural Diversification and Effective Rural Poverty Alleviation
Making agricultural diversification based on secondary food crops advantageous for rural poverty alleviation in developing countries requires two conditions. The first is the existence of favourable and expanding markets for secondary food crop products. Without the existence of such markets, production of secondary food crops will not financially benefit the farmers and hence, fail to help poor producers escape poverty. One way to create this market situation is to relax existing food self-sufficiency programmes, avoiding reliance on the production of a particular food crop alone, but to include secondary food crops such as maize and cassava. In other words, food self-sufficiency programmes need to be multi-food crop based. To make such a redesigned food self-sufficiency programme successful, governments have to implement effective food diversification policies.

Second is the existence of processing industries that use secondary food crops as basic inputs or raw materials. The demand for products such as bio-fuel and animal feed, which are produced from secondary food crops is now growing both at the international and national markets levels. However, most developing countries have not been able to exploit this opportunity for the benefit of their population due to a lack of supporting public policies, especially regarding investment and international trade. In the context of international trade, the AGRIDIV country studies reveal, for example, that some countries have become reliant on the importation of secondary food crops, such as maize, even though in these countries it is cheaper to produce domestically than to import (CAPSA, 2006). This peculiar import behaviour is attributable to the implementation of inappropriate international trade policies for domestic production.

The creation of favourable and expanding markets does not automatically benefit the rural poor. Poverty itself hinders most of them from reaping the benefits brought by these markets or the opportunities created by new uses for secondary crops. Therefore, the government's role is to support the poor in overcoming the constraints they face to beneficially participate in the market. It is a matter of implementing policies that open access to good infrastructure, financial systems, new technologies, good market information and markets for secondary food crops.

In terms of vertical agricultural diversification activities, processing industries are key for the generation of value added from secondary food crops. Therefore, the involvement of poor farmers in value added generation is critical to escape poverty. However, as discussed above, the farmers themselves cannot afford entry into this business. One way is to promote mutually beneficial business partnerships with the processing industry, which can be achieved through contract selling or similar agreements, an area where the government's role is to provide a secure legal framework and policy support.

Written by Parulian Hutagaol, Associate Project Leader, AGRIDIV Project, UNESCAP-CAPSA, Bogor, Indonesia.

(References available upon request)