Pro-poor agricultural growth - Inclusion or differentiation? Village level perspectives from Zambia

Over the past decade pro-poor agricultural growth strategies intended to raise smallholder productivity and increase commercialization among smallholders have been put forth as the key method for addressing poverty in rural Africa. By contrast perspectives that challenge this model question the market optimism and presumptions of higher smallholder efficiency that underpin the pro-poor agricultural growth model. Little longitudinal data exists that can shed light on questions related to sustainability of growth patterns and their distributional consequences at the village level, however. This paper uses a mixed methods approach to trace growth dynamics as well as the distributional aspects of such growth in terms of access to agrarian resources and local level labour relations. Quantitative data was used to select three villages in Zambia that had experienced pro-poor agricultural growth between 2002 and 2008. These villages were re-surveyed in 2013 and supplementary qualitative data was collected. Two of the three villages showed sustainable growth patterns. While the sources of such growth as well their distributional outcomes were different in the two villages, the reasons for such differences are related to Zambian agricultural policy as well as geography.