James Sumberg and Christine Okali
Young People, Agriculture, y
Transformation in Rural Africa:
An “Opportunity Space” Approach
Over the last decade, both agriculture and young people have become increasingly
prominent on African development agendas. Politicians, Responsables políticos, y
development professionals have confronted food price volatility, food insecurity,
and the phenomenon of large-scale land grabs on the one hand, y el
entrenched under- and unemployment among young people—the (youthful)
human face of the phenomenon of jobless growth—on the other. It is perhaps not
surprising that many have put two and two together, concluding that engagement
in production agriculture (including crops, livestock, and fisheries) is an obvious
(if not the obvious) opportunity through which to address the problem of limited
economic opportunity for young people in rural areas. Associated with this view is
the assumption that rural young people would be better off if they did not migrate
to urban areas, thus avoiding exposure to risky and illegal behavior (sexo,
HIV/AIDS, drogas, crime) and potential entanglement in dangerous political
activity.1
James Sumberg is a Fellow of the Knowledge, Tecnología, and Society Team at the
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, Inglaterra. He has a
longstanding research interest in African agriculture and is the co-convenor of the
Future Agriculture Consortium’s work on young people, agricultura, and food in
África.
Christine Okali coordinates the gender and social difference theme of the Future
Agricultures Consortium at the Institute of Development Studies. She has studied
agrarian change and gender over four decades, with a particular focus on West
África.
This essay draws heavily from the unpublished chapter, “Agricultural Policy,
Employment Opportunities, and Social Mobility of Africa’s Rural Youth: A Critical
Análisis,” by J. Sumberg, norte. A. Anyidoho, METRO. Chasukwa, B. Chinsinga, j. Leavy, GRAMO.
Tadele, S. Whitfield, and J. Yaro (2013), commissioned by the UNU-WIDER
Prospects for Africa’s Youth project, with additional support from the Future
Agricultures Consortium.
© 2013 James Sumberg and Christine Okali
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Most of the policies and programs that attempt to engage young people in rural
Africa with agriculture are essentially variants of “making markets (and globaliza-
ción) work for the poor.”2 Framed with the language of enterprise, entrepreneur-
barco, and value chains, they promote farming as a business and the professionaliza-
tion of agriculture. Many such programs and projects provide training and access
to microcredit, tecnología, and other resources. They also commonly insist on
various forms of group action, Por ejemplo, to engage in new markets.
We suggest that, in promoting the idea that young people living in rural areas
would be better off if they just buckled down to an agricultural life, Responsables políticos
and the development community more generally are taking a position for which
there is little if any evidence or supporting research. Además, as enticing as
the link between agriculture and employment for young people may first appear, él
must be recognized that it flies in the face of longstanding evidence, that in at least
some situations, both rural young people and their parents hold farming and rural
life in very low esteem.3 Indeed, investing in children’s education so they can get
out of farming and move on to formal work in the public or private sector is a long-
established strategy in rural Africa.
In addition to the dominant discourse around market-based solutions—an
important part of the background of the repeated referencing of entrepreneurship
and entrepreneurial attitudes and behavior, with some initiatives promising to
transform job seekers into job creators—is the current focus in the development
community on “impact” and “scaling up,” and the imperative to deliver “impact at
scale.” From an analytical perspective, this focus foregrounds questions about the
nature of the expected development gains (How many jobs over what time period?
What kinds of jobs? Jobs for whom?) and the role of or necessity for structural
change in delivering these jobs.
A critical factor here is that many, if not most, initiatives are based on an undif-
ferentiated view of young people. The language says it all: “the youth,” as if they all
have the same aspirations, talents, opportunities, access to resources, redes,
interests, and needs, and will therefore benefit from the same limited array of inter-
ventions. This clearly is not the case, any more than it is for other longstanding and
equally problematic categories, including the poor, women, or small farmers.
While it is obvious that policy and programs cannot be designed to address the
unique circumstances of every individual, one of the most important lessons from
the last two decades of poverty-focused development is that context and difference
matter enormously.
Our argument is that entrepreneurship-based policy and programs that
address the job challenges facing young people in rural Africa need to be much
more firmly grounded than is generally the case at present. Específicamente, in terms of
expectations, diseño, and implementation, they must take explicit account of the
highly diverse and changing rural economic and social realities within which
young people find themselves (and indeed help to shape), in addition to the diver-
sity of the young people themselves.
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Young People, Agriculture, and Transformation in Rural Africa
In the next section, we first identify four categories that we believe are useful
when thinking about work from a development perspective. We then present the
notion of “opportunity space” to provide insight into the factors affecting the work
opportunities available to young people in particular rural contexts. Following
este, we draw on insights from feminist and gender analysis to argue that policy
and programs aimed at rural young people must focus more on what roles social
relations and social difference play in determining which young people are able to
take advantage of which work and entrepreneurial opportunities. The final section
identifies a number of policy and program implications.
OPPORTUNITY SPACE
It is widely appreciated that work opportunities, whether in the formal or informal
sector, differ with respect to the skills required, level of remuneration, risks to per-
sonal safety, social status, social identity, etcétera. While all these are important,
from a development perspective that places poverty reduction, social justice, y
social transformation at center stage, they provide an inadequate analytical base.
Here we borrow from the literature on social protection to suggest that work
opportunities can be seen to fall into four categories:4 preventative, protective, pro-
motive, and transformative (mesa 1). In the remainder of this article, we focus pri-
marily on the latter two.
“Promotive” work allows real incomes and capabilities to be enhanced and
capital to be accumulated. Much formal-sector work would fall into this category,
but there are also examples from Africa’s agricultural sector. hemos previamente
written about young men and women in Brong Ahafo, Ghana, who use intensive,
small-scale tomato production to accumulate capital over a relatively short time
(“quick money”).5 With hard work and some luck, after several seasons of growing
two or three tomato crops per year, these young people were able to save enough
capital to build a small house, get married, establish a small kiosk, or fund an
adventure (p.ej., to Libya in search of work). Strikingly, few saw their future as being
in agriculture, a pesar de 10 years after our original study, many still had some
involvement in farming.
“Transformative” work is similar to promotive work, but it also addresses
issues of social equity and exclusion. Labor laws that regulate worker rights are the
most common means of addressing equity and exclusion in the formal sector,6 y
there are some examples—including the Self-Employed Women’s Association in
India—of organized efforts to make the informal sector more transformative. Para
women, transformative work might be regarded as that which increases their social
status and contributes to the achievement of gender equity.7
While each of the four work types is important, we suggest that, for rural
young people, and particularly from a developmental perspective, the focus must
be on the promotive–transformative end of the continuum. It is important to
remember that rural livelihoods most often include several different economic
activities, which may be located at different points along this continuum.
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Mesa 1. Four categories of work based on the transformative social protection
estructura.
We use the term “opportunity space” to refer to “the spatial and temporal dis-
tribution of the universe of more or less viable [trabajar] options that a young person
may exploit as she/he attempts to establish an independent life.”8 In the light of
well-established patterns of both short- and long-term migration, it is useful to dis-
tinguish between near and distant opportunity space.
The near opportunity space available to rural young people is to a significant
degree shaped by two sets of factors. The first of these includes the characteristics
of the particular rural location, and specifically the quality of natural resources and
accessibility of markets. The interaction of resource quality and market accessibil-
ity goes a long way to determining the kinds of economic activities that are likely
to be viable in a particular location.9 It is important to note, sin embargo, that as far as
agricultural production is concerned, the relationship between natural resources,
market accessibility, and economic viability is not always straightforward. Para
ejemplo, the urban demand for perishable horticulture products can be so strong
that nearby producers invest heavily to overcome natural resource limitations,
such as soil quality or the availability of water. The intensive vegetable production
plots that can be seen in and around many African cities illustrate this well.
Además, there is a dynamic aspect to the relation between the quality of the
natural resource base, market accessibility, and economic viability that is driven,
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Young People, Agriculture, and Transformation in Rural Africa
Por ejemplo, by new technology or production methods or by investment in new
transportation infrastructure.
The second set of factors that shapes the near opportunity space is both social
and relational. Social difference (including gender, edad, class, etnicidad, level of
education, and marital status), norms and expectations, and social relations and
networks frame accepted ways of being and doing, as well as the kinds of activities
and engagements that are considered appropriate and those that are not. In many
societies, Por ejemplo, women are expected to focus on household food security
and welfare, which may have implications—at least during the early years of mar-
ried life or when they have children—for their interest in and/or ability to engage
in entrepreneurial activities, especially when these activities involve working away
from home. Social difference and social relations are critical in determining how
easily and under what conditions key resources (p.ej., land, labor, credit, and access
to services and information) can be accessed; family relations, be they supportive
or constraining, can be particularly important for young people in the early stages
of building a livelihood.
It is within an opportunity space shaped by both geography and social factors
that an individual young person gravitates toward certain available work opportu-
nities and away from others. This process reflects personal (individual) interests,
aptitudes, and attitudes (es decir., toward risk, travel, etc.), as well as chance. It is true
that the factors shaping opportunity space as we have outlined them here do not
account for the rare innovator or entrepreneur who is able to imagine and act on
something within an opportunity space that is simply not visible to others.
Sin embargo, it is critically important that those making policy and designing pro-
grams for rural young people do not get so caught up in the rhetoric of empower-
ment through entrepreneurship that they begin to believe that large numbers of
young people are, or will be, able to become entrepreneurs. En otras palabras, cuando
entrepreneurship is defined as “any attempt at new business or new venture cre-
ación, such as self-employment,” it obscures the fundamental relationship between
entrepreneurship, innovation, and job and wealth creation.
Our basic argument is that characteristics of the rural location on the one hand
and social difference, normas, and relations on the other, shape the opportunity
space for members of particular social groups in particular contexts. La resultante
opportunity space can be analyzed in terms of depth, diversidad, and dynamism,10
characteristics associated with the types and densities of work opportunities avail-
able to different social groups. In other words, for different social groups, alguno
opportunity spaces will contain more, and more varied, prospects for agriculture-
related promotive or transformative work than others, a fact that must inform pol-
icy and program design.
Before leaving the discussion of opportunity space, we note that many people
in rural Africa, young people included, are involved in several different economic
activities, either in parallel or in sequence.11 This phenomenon of livelihood diver-
sification may manifest itself as a shifting mix of farm and nonfarm activities, ambos
in the short term and over the course of a working life, and it draws attention to
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different understandings of the notions of work and career. We also note that many
rural young people, both men and women, will at some point exploit part of their
distant opportunity space; Por ejemplo, through temporary or longer-term migra-
ción. Sin embargo, rather than cutting all links with the rural world and agriculture, a
decision to explore (and exploit) the distant opportunity space can result in new
capital, habilidades, información, and networks being incorporated into the rural econo-
mi. A longer-term view of the dynamics between the near and distant opportuni-
ty space, and between rural and urban areas, is therefore essential.
While it is certainly possible to identify examples of promotive work in rural
África, these must be seen against a background of widespread and persistent rural
poverty associated with protective and preventative work.12 However, to achieve
impact at scale will require promotive work to become the norm. This implies real
structural change, which is unlikely to be an overnight (or painless) proceso. In any
caso, at least as agriculture has modernized in other contexts and regions, the cre-
ation of large numbers of promotive jobs has not generally been observed. Este
picture changes somewhat if the focus shifts from production agriculture to the
agriculture and food system more broadly, where urbanization, changing patterns
of labor force participation, and rising incomes result in increasing numbers of for-
mal-economy and potentially promotive jobs in areas such as transport, proceso-
ing and manufacture, food retail, and catering.13
Central to the arguments in this essay is the categorization of work presented
above and the factors determining the presence (or absence) of opportunities at
the promotive–transformative end of the continuum within particular opportuni-
ty spaces. In the next section, we extend this analysis by drawing on the consider-
able feminist scholarship around the concept of social transformation, y el
need to challenge norms of behavior that structure advantage and disadvantage if
the status and position of disadvantaged groups are to be transformed.
TRANSFORMACIÓN, SOCIAL RELATIONS, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Important and longstanding bodies of scholarship address the particular social,
económico, political, and psychological dimensions of youth, as well as the various
challenges faced by young people as they begin to make their way in the world.
Sin embargo, young people in rural Africa do not figure prominently in this literature,
and when they do appear, the focus is mainly on health, HIV/AIDS, and risky sex-
ual behavior.14
For this discussion, por lo tanto, we draw primarily from feminist scholarship.
This is logical in the first place because of the various ways in which age and gen-
der intersect, and because the understanding of power and power relations that is
at the heart of feminist and gender analysis provides insight into these interactions.
Segundo, as we have already indicated, the experience and opportunities of young
people are gendered, and feminist literature provides some critical insights into the
implications of gendered life experiences that can inform the design and imple-
mentation of development programs.
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Young People, Agriculture, and Transformation in Rural Africa
But we need to focus first on the link between development and transforma-
ción, particularly as we start with the conception of development that has poverty
alleviation and social justice at its core. Feminist scholars and activists use the term
“transformation” to refer to a change in the status and position of women
(described as subordinate) relative to men. Transformation comes about through
individual but especially through collective action that challenges entrenched
institutions and power relations. Women’s agency is placed at center stage, but it is
recognized that their ability to act may be limited. In relation to work, the focus is
on the relative terms and conditions of employment for men and women, but more
broadly on the relative value attributed to work done by men and women in all sec-
tors and domains, including unpaid domestic work. In this context, transformative
work is as much about being in a position to exercise choice as about the work per
se, and the struggle is against women’s “constrained inclusion” and “adverse incor-
poration” into labor markets.15
This understanding of transformation contrasts with the narrower notion of
women’s economic empowerment that is common currency in much development
práctica. Here the emphasis is on individual women having control of their assets
and income; tal como, economic empowerment is presented as individual self-ful-
filment, with clear ownership rights incentivizing individual as opposed to collec-
tive action. The anticipated economic and social impact of this model of empow-
erment—including expectations that women will forgo their own needs and inter-
ests in favor of their children and household—are then used to justify state and
development agency investment that promotes women’s economic activities. A
focus on women’s empowerment thus becomes “smart economics.”16
The major limitation in this conception of economic empowerment is the fact
that men and women exist and act within a network of social relations, y, más-
encima, that to some extent these social relations (with spouses, siblings, padres,
amigos, kin group members, etc.) both enable and constrain action. Decisions are
seldom taken or implemented by men or women in isolation, with no reference to
joint interests and projects or to the interests and projects of others. De este modo, a sim-
plistic conception of individual decisionmaking and individual action can be dan-
gerously misleading.
We find these contrasting views of transformation and social relations useful
because young people, whether male or female, also depend on support from oth-
ers—on their social relations and networks—as they start to explore the local
opportunity space, enter the world of work, and begin to build their livelihoods.
Assistance comes in many forms, and parents and/or the domestic unit is rarely its
only source. Por ejemplo, our work with young, masculino, cash-oriented tomato grow-
ers in Ghana demonstrated clearly that the success of their activities depended on
sisters, mothers, or aunts preparing their daily food; on family or others providing
(through rental arrangements or otherwise) access to scarce riverside land; and on
working together with friends on one another’s plots at peak times. These young
men were anything but atomized, isolated, or individualized economic actors. On
the other hand, the fact that in many cases they were not encumbered by other
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social relations and obligations—arising, Por ejemplo, through marriage or child-
birth—gave them additional room to maneuver. There is a sense that young peo-
por ejemplo, and perhaps particularly young men, occupy a social space where the rules are
relaxed, thus giving them additional latitude to experiment and explore.
Although we are arguing that social relations must be taken seriously when
both analyzing opportunity space and promoting individual entrepreneurial activ-
idad, we are at the same time forced to recognize the importance of social difference
in determining which individuals can make use of particular opportunities. Esto es
especially important in relation to young men and young women, largely because
of entrenched views of what is appropriate behavior for one or the other at differ-
ent points in the transition to adulthood, and the way in which these influence pol-
icy design, implementación, and outcomes.
Idealmente, we should be seeking to understand the work and income-earning
decisiones (of young people, adultos, households, and families) in the context of their
economic and social lives as a whole. This would then shift the focus toward a
greater understanding of the interdependency and linked lives of men and women,
both within households and families and across generations. While network
approaches and life-course analyses are well established in the social sciences, a
date they have gained little traction in development practice. This kind of approach
would specifically help to highlight the changing ways men and women engage in
agricultura, rather than working on the assumption that one size (p.ej., profesión-
alized farmer) fits all, and at all times. It would also force us to agree that neither
transformation nor empowerment look the same for everyone, nor are they fixed
or permanent states.
This brings us to the links between transformation and economic empower-
ment on the one hand and entrepreneurship on the other. What is the theory of
change supporting entrepreneurship as a key development intervention for rural
young people? We suggest that in practice the entrepreneurship agenda is less
about transformation in the feminist sense of changing structures and power rela-
ciones (although there are initiatives to engage young people in political processes17)
and more about the inclusion of rural youth in the current structures and power
relaciones. While this might be construed as a staged approach that initially empha-
sizes promotive over transformative work, there is no indication that this is actu-
ally the case, or that transformation in the broader sense is even on the agenda.
There is a real risk that the rhetoric of transformation and entrepreneurialism
(with images of innovation, new opportunities and markets, risk-taking, but above
all significant job creation—and implying at least the potential for transformation)
is being used to mask initiatives that in reality are much less ambitious. Our sense
is that many of these are essentially about creating opportunities for self-employ-
ment and petty trade, which may not have much potential to be promotive, to say
nothing of transformative. To confuse self-employment and petty trade in the
informal sector with entrepreneurship is not helpful.
If this analysis is anywhere near the mark, there are important questions to
answer about the potential nature and scale of the anticipated development impact
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Young People, Agriculture, and Transformation in Rural Africa
(es decir., How much new work? Will it be promotive? Where will it be located? Who
will be able to take advantage?), about value for money, etcétera. It also raises
questions about the potential effect on the challenges, procesos, and dynamics
that worry policymakers and development specialists; Por ejemplo, bajo- y
unemployment, the migration of young people from rural areas, aging farm pop-
ulaciones, and the progressive hollowing-out of rural communities.
Finalmente, and perhaps most importantly, we are left with the question of whether
small-scale agriculture (or agriculture of any scale or type) combined with
microenterprise provides a credible basis for economic empowerment or transfor-
mation at scale; if it does, dónde, under what conditions, and for whom is this like-
ly? More broadly, what does this imply for the jobs agenda across both rural and
urban areas?
POLICY AND PROGRAM IMPLICATIONS
The new policy and development interest that has coalesced around young people,
agricultural production, and work in rural Africa is clearly to be welcomed.
Sin embargo, in this essay we have argued that if policy and programs are to be suc-
cessful they will need to be much more firmly grounded in life-course analysis and
an appreciation of the various ways that rural men and women might use agricul-
ture to serve their needs and interests. Such a social and economic analysis must
be context-specific and must address difference and diversity in relation to both
rural locations and young people. críticamente, it also must highlight the social and
relational aspects of young people’s lives and worlds. We have suggested that the
notion of opportunity space provides a framework that can facilitate such an analy-
hermana.
More nuanced analysis along the lines we suggest should result in policies and
programs that are better grounded in the reality of difference among both young
people and rural locations. It is also important to begin to trim the unrealistic
expectations generated by the rhetoric of empowerment through entrepreneur-
barco. At present there is little evidence about how, in what situations, or for whom
these programs deliver promotive or transformative work opportunities.
Además, much more needs to be done to understand the likely effects of the
modernization of the production side of African agriculture on the availability of
promotive or transformative employment opportunities for young people in rural
areas.
While it is tempting to conclude that agriculture can and should be a central
part of the solution to the employment problems faced by the present generation
of African rural young people, we suggest that the real development challenge is in
relation to future generations. If the transformation of African agriculture, y el
agrarian economy more broadly, proceed apace, the critical questions over the next
five to ten years are these: How many and what kinds of agriculture and food-relat-
ed jobs will be created? Where will they be located? What knowledge and skills will
be required? What kinds of education and training programs will be needed? Ahora
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is the time to address these questions systematically. While entrepreneurship will
certainly have a place, the young people who engage with the agriculture and food
sector will increasingly do so as employees of formal-sector businesses. Fundamentalmente,
the sector’s ability to attract and keep young talent will depend on the degree to
which these positions are at the promotive–transformative end of the work contin-
uum. Sin embargo, if demand for these types of jobs continues to outstrip supply, con
the exception of reputational risk, there may be little motivation for the sector to
move in this direction.
1. norte. A. Anyidoho et al., “Young People and Policy Narratives in Sub-Saharan Africa,” FAC working
paper 32. Brighton, Inglaterra: Future Agricultures Consortium, 2012.
2. See for example “A synthesis of the Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P) Approach”, Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC: Berne, 2008.
3. Por ejemplo, Getnet Tadele and Asrat Ayalew Gella, “‘A Last Resort and Often Not an Option at
All’: Farming and Young People in Ethiopia,” IDS Bulletin 43, No. 6, 2012. En el otro, hand some
have argued that young people are leaving agriculture not because of a lack of interest but because
changes in agrarian relations result in them being denied access to land. k. S. Amanor, “Family
Valores, Land Sales and Agricultural Commodification in South-Eastern Ghana,” Africa 80, No. 1,
2010. Others suggest that where there are business opportunities, young people who are keen to
will go into agriculture, and to innovate. F. Proctor and V. Lucchesi, Small-Scale Farming and
Youth in An Era of Rapid Social Change. Londres: IIED and The Hague: HIVOS, 2012.
4. “Social protection describes all initiatives that transfer income or assets to the poor, protect the
vulnerable against livelihood risks, and enhance the social status and rights of the marginalised;
with the overall objectives of extending the benefits of economic growth and reducing the eco-
nomic or social vulnerability of poor, vulnerable and marginalised people.” S. Devereux and R.
Sabates-Wheeler, “Social Protection for Transformation,” IDS Bulletin 38, No. 3, 2007: 25.
5. C. Okali and J. Sumberg, “Quick Money and Power: Tomatoes and Livelihood Building in Rural
Brong Ahafo, Ghana,” IDS Bulletin 43, No. 6, 2012; j. Sumberg and C. Okali, “Tomatoes,
Decentralisation and Environmental Management in Brong Ahafo, Ghana,” Society and Natural
Recursos 19, 2006.
6. Ver, Por ejemplo, S. Barrientos, C. Dolan, y un. Tallontire, “A Gendered Value Chain Approach
to Codes of Conduct in African Horticlture,” World Development 31, No. 9, 2003.
7. See P. Kantor, Ud.. Rani, and J. Unni, “Decent Work Deficits in the Informal Economy: Case of
Surat,” Economic and Political Weekly 41, No. 21, 2006.
8. See J. Sumberg et al., "Introducción: The Young People and Agriculture ‘Problem’ in Africa,” IDS
Boletín 43, No. 6, 2012; t. Painter, j. Sumberg, and T. Precio, “Your ‘Terroir’ and My ‘Action Space’:
Implications of Differentiation, Movement and Diversification for the ‘Approche Terroir’ in
Sahalian West Africa,” Africa 64, No. 4, 1994.
9. S. Wiggins and S. Proctor, “How Special Are Rural Areas? The Economic Implications of Location
for Rural Development,” Development Policy Review 19, No. 4, 2001.
10. norte. Bosma, S. Wennekers, and J. mi. Amorós, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2011: Extended
Informe: Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Employees Across the Globe. Babson Park, MAMÁ: GEM,
2012, pag. 9.
11. Depth refers to the number/extent of particular types of opportunities; diversity refers to the
diversity of opportunities both within the agricultural sector and across other sectors;
dynamism refers to the rapidity and extent of change.
12. F. Ellis, Rural Livelihoods and Diversity in Developing Countries. Oxford, Inglaterra: Oxford
Prensa universitaria, 2000.
13. B. Baulch, ed. Why Poverty Persists: Poverty Dynamics in Asia and Africa. Cheltenham, Inglaterra:
Edward Elgar, 2011.
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Young People, Agriculture, and Transformation in Rural Africa
14. Por ejemplo, in the UK the agrifood sector broadly conceived is a major source of work; howev-
es, many of these jobs are not located in rural areas, and the sector is characterised by low-skill
and low-pay jobs. C. lloyd, GRAMO. Mason, and K. Mayhew, editores., Low-Wage Work in the United
Kingdom, Russell Sage Foundation Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies. Nuevo
york: Fundación Russell Sage, 2008.
15. Some notable exceptions include P. Richards,”To fight or To Farm? Agrarian Dimensions of the
Mano River Conflicts (Liberia and Sierra Leone),” African Affairs 104, No. 417 (2005); PAG.
Richards, “A Systematic Approach to Cultural Explanations of War: Tracing Causal Processes in
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