Most African farmers operate on small plots of land, with seeds and labor as their main inputs. What can decisionmakers do to help these farmers improve their livelihoods and escape poverty?

About 80 policymakers and researchers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda gathered in Entebbe, Uganda, on May 2–3, 2005 for a conference on “The Future of Smallholder Agriculture in Eastern Africa: The Roles of States, Markets, and Civil Society.” Participants presented findings on a range of topics, including agricultural productivity, trade liberalization, irrigation, and natural resource management in more than 10 East African countries. IFPRI’s Eastern Africa Food Policy Network funded the research and organized the conference.

“Our work has demonstrated that empowering small-scale farmers should be the top priority for improving agriculture in the region,” said Steven Were Omamo, coordinator of the network since 2002.

Participants generally agreed that research and policy should help smallholders integrate themselves into existing commodity production and marketing chains. “The future of smallholder agriculture will be defined by the degree to which small farmers are able to embrace farming as a business,” noted Mulinge Mukumbu, country director for Land O'Lakes Inc. in Kenya.

Participants agreed that improving the lot of smallholders would take concerted efforts by all actors—the public and private sectors and civil society—working toward the common objectives of sustainable rural development, improved food and nutrition security, and effective integration of small farmers into global markets.

These objectives will be part of the new joint research program between the Eastern and Central Africa Programme for Agricultural Policy Analysis (ECAPAPA) and IFPRI that was launched at the conference. Building on eight years of work by the IFPRI network, the results of research conducted in the region by IFPRI and its partners, and the conclusions of the conference, the program will focus on trade facilitation and the commercialization of smallholder agriculture.