Agribusiness and rural enterprise

Promoting agribusiness and rural enter prises of all kinds is now seen as a poten tially very rewarding strategy for creating rural employment and for bring ing the benefits of economic growth to rural areas in developing countries. These are the areas in developing coun tries where the problems of poverty are often most acute. Programmes for pro moting agribusiness and rural enterprise are particularly appealing because they can build in existing structures and because they are less likely than some forms of development to cause social inequalities. Promoting agribusiness and rural employment is a fairly new trend in developing planning and comparatively little experience to draw on is available at present for those wishing to establish new schemes here. This book discusses the problems of promoting agribusiness and rural employment. It examines the lessons which can be drawn from those schemes implemented so far. It puts for ward strategies for action and is intended as an applied development manual to assist those establishing pro grammes to decide on project feasibility and to implement and programmes. assess

From 1977 to 1981, B.H. Kinsey was Director of the Overseas Development Group at the University of East Anglia. From 1982 to 1984, he was Director, Rural Development Research Unit, and Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe. He is a frequent consultant for international development agencies and operates his own consultancy firm, Informetrics. He is currently a long-term consultant to the Management Services Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe as well as a research associate in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Zimbabwe.