The Socio-Economic Impact of De-Agrarianisation in Sub-Sahara: A Re-Look on Rural Livelihoods and Employment

This article critically engages with the academic debate on de-agrarianisationwhich has gained traction in political economy perspectives of agrarianchange in Sub-Saharan Africa. De-agrarianisation represents long-termprocesses of occupational adjustment, income-earning reorientation and thespatial relocation of rural dwellers away from strictly agricultural modes oflivelihood. Given that Sub-Saharan Africa is steadily becoming less rural incharacter, there is a need to explore the critical factors that drive deagrarianisation and its implications on rural socio-economic development. Itemerges that the de-agrarianisation process is a historical process dating backfrom the colonial era. It is driven by urban and industrial development, theglobalisation process, neoliberal policies, climate change variability, growthof off-farm livelihood options and access to education. This phenomenon hasfar-reaching widespread social, economic and ecological effects in rural areas.We challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions of the farm householdefficiency paradigm that has dominated rural development thinking in theGlobal South and recommend the need for measures that can help boost nonfarm activities availability, including increasing the access of rural householdsto assets such as financial capital and non-price factors like education andinfrastructure. The development of non-farm activities should complementthe effort to re-agrarianise since activities in the former depend directly orindirectly on the latter.