One thing that is clear to most analysts is that food production will have to come
from agricultural systems located in countries where the additional people will live in.
In these countries, farmers are not only resource poor with no access to credit,
technical assistance or markets, but their farming systems are complex and diversified
with mixes of annual crops, trees and livestock. Many of them (about 370 million rural
poor) are located in arid or semi-arid zones or in steep hill-slope areas that are
ecologically vulnerable. Thus it is clear that in order to benefit the poor more directly, an
NRM approach must be applicable under the highly heterogeneous and diverse
conditions in which smallholders live, it must be environmentally sustainable and based
on the use of local and indigenous resources. The emphasis must be on improving whole
farming systems at the field or watershed level rather than specific commodities.
Technological generation must be demand driven which means that research priorities
must be based on the socio-economic and environmental needs and circumstances of
resource-poor farmers.