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Despite improvements over the past 10 years that have lifted more than 350 million rural people out of extreme poverty, global poverty remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon – with 70 percent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people living in rural areas – according to a report released by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
IFAD’s Rural Poverty Report 2011 says that, during the past decade, the overall rate of extreme poverty in rural areas of developing countries – people living on less than US$1.25 a day – has dropped from 48 per cent to 34 per cent. Dramatic gains in East Asia, particularly China, account for much of the decline.
The report points to an alarming increase in the numbers of extremely poor people in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, although the percentage living on less than the equivalent of US$1.25 a day – at 62 per cent – has actually dropped slightly since IFAD last issued a Rural Poverty Report in 2001.
It also notes the persistence of rural poverty on the South Asian subcontinent, which is home to half of the world’s 1 billion extremely poor rural people.
Increasingly volatile food prices, the uncertainties and effects of climate change, and a range of natural resource constraints will complicate further efforts to reduce rural poverty, the report says.
But the report also emphasizes that profound changes in agricultural markets are giving rise to new and promising opportunities for the developing world’s smallholder farmers to significantly boost their productivity, which will be necessary to ensure enough food for an increasingly urbanized global population estimated to reach at least 9 billion by 2050.
Accordingly, “there remains an urgent need … to invest more and better in agriculture and rural areas” based on “a new approach to smallholder agriculture that is both market-oriented and sustainable,” the report says.
“The report makes clear that it is time to look at poor smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs in a completely new way – not as charity cases but as people whose innovation, dynamism and hard work will bring prosperity to their communities and greater food security to the world in the decades ahead,” said Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD’s President.
“We need to focus on creating an enabling environment for rural women and men to overcome the risks and challenges they face as they work to make their farms and other businesses successful,” he said.
Significant gains in many areas
In addition to the overall decline of extreme poverty in rural areas of developing countries, the Rural Poverty Report 2011 points to other significant gains, most notably:
A drop in the overall poverty rate of US$2 a day in rural areas, from 79 per cent to 61 per cent over the past decade.
Remarkable progress in rural areas of East Asia – primarily China – where the number of extreme poor fell by about two-thirds over the past decade, from 365 million to 117 million, as did the rate of extreme poverty, which fell from 44 to 15 percent.
Improvements in other regions, with the extreme rural poverty rate falling by more than half in Latin America and by nearly half in the Middle East and North Africa. in both regions, the percentage of rural people who live in extreme poverty dropped significantly, as well.
Notwithstanding these gains, the report makes clear that rural poverty continues to be a massive phenomenon throughout much of the developing world, and that it is particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia:
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly a third of the world’s extremely poor rural people, whose numbers swelled from 268 million to 306 million over the past decade. While Sub-Saharan Africa’s rate of extreme poverty in rural areas declined from 65 to 62 per cent, it remains by far the highest of any region.
Rural poverty rates have dropped only slightly in the last decade in South Asia, which now has the largest number of poor rural people – about 500 million – of any region or sub-region. Four-fifths of all extremely poor people in South Asia live in rural areas.
The report cites the consequences of climate change – which will make agricultural production more difficult in many places – as complicating the challenges of addressing rural poverty in these regions and globally.
It also points to the key role of women farmers, who produce most of the food that is consumed locally in rural areas, and the need to address their inadequate access to land tenure, credit, equipment and market opportunities.
In addition, the report says “low levels of investment in agriculture, weak rural infrastructure, inadequate production and financial services, and a deteriorating natural resource base” – particularly land and water and growing competition for their use – are creating an environment which makes it too risky and unprofitable for most of the developing world’s smallholder farmers to participate in agricultural markets.
Opportunities for accelerating progress
Yet the report also indicates that momentous ongoing changes in agricultural markets, as well as emerging opportunities in the rural non-farm economy, offer new hope that major progress can be made in combating rural poverty. These include the rapid growth of urban centres and the accompanying rise in demand for higher value food, as well as the fact that agricultural markets are growing and becoming better organized in order to meet that demand.
“The world that rural people live in is changing very fast, and that is bringing a range of new opportunities,” said IFAD’s Ed Heinemann, who led the team that wrote the report. “In order to enable them to address the problems they face and make the most of the opportunities, governments and the donors who work with them have got to do much more to support rural areas, to invest in rural areas, to improve their infrastructure and governance, and to make rural areas better places to live and to do business.”
Essential to any rural poverty reduction strategy, said Heinemann, is understanding how to help poor rural people avoid and manage the risks they face – from longstanding risks related to ill-health and natural disasters to new and emerging challenges related to natural resource degradation, the effects of climate change, growing insecurity of access to land, and greater volatility of food prices.
“The food price shocks a few years ago were a wake up call that, with global population growth and the movement of more people into cities, higher and more uncertain food prices could become a fact of life,” said Nwanze. “But this also means that smallholder agriculture – if it is productive, commercially oriented and well linked to modern markets – can offer the developing world’s rural people a route out of poverty as they become part of the solution to global food security challenges.”
The Rural Poverty Report 2011 was made possible with funding from the Governments of Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, and the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands.
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- Written by: Dennis Fordham
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Construction and other activities were highlights of the past year at Westside Community Park.
Receipt of a major grant, the inaugural Grillin’ on the Green, and completion of earthmoving and stockpiling donated grindings from the Highway 29 repaving project were among the major accomplishments.
The Westside Community Park Committee is the recipient of a grant from the Pacific Forest & Watershed Lands Stewardship Council.
This infrastructure grant for $200,000 over two years is funding the final grading, installation of an irrigation system, provision of electricity, planting of grass and construction of two sets of backstops and dugouts.
When completed this five-acre portion of the park will contain a baseball field, a Little League field and three soccer fields.
As a donation to the park, Ruzicka Associates of Lakeport developed a grading plan and then surveyed and staked the site for the final earthwork. Funded by grant money, the final grade was completed.
Following a soils analysis, amendments were purchased and added to enrich the soil. Longtime park supporter RB Peters of Lakeport donated time and equipment and, utilizing additional equipment donated by the Wooldridge Ranch, worked the amendments into the soil and landplaned the field to its final form.
Wyatt Irrigation in Ukiah created an irrigation plan and the committee purchased the needed materials to install that system. The company donated the sprinkler heads for the system.
The rains began before installation could occur. The materials are being stored and installation will be the first activity to take place in the spring.
The last activity to occur on site this season was the placing of erosion control measures for the winter.
Under California law, these measures must be in place by Oct. 15 and remain until at least April 15.
In August the committee held its first onsite fundraising event. Grillin’ on the Green was a barbecue cookoff featuring service clubs and individuals. The People’s Choice Competition was won by the Irwin family from Kelseyville.
The goal of the Committee in hosting an event at the park was to get people out there for a fun day.
Many in attendance said it was their first visit. Music by the LC Diamonds and activities for children added to the fun.
With the assistance of many sponsors, especially the Keeling-Barnes Family Foundation and the Priest Family Trust, the event cleared more than $16,000.
The committee plans to make this an annual event. The second Grillin’ on the Green is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011.
Granite Construction Company agreed to donate more than 20,000 tons of asphalt grindings generated from the repaving of Highway 29. These grindings are being stored on site and will be processed and used as road base under roads, driveways, parking lots and trails.
Others in the community came forward to assist with moving the grindings on site. RB Peters offered the use of a dozer. Larry Wise of Scotts Valley volunteered as the equipment operator of this seven-day project. Westgate Petroleum of Lakeport donated 450 gallons of diesel fuel.
The value of this donated material is $350,000. This was accomplished at no cost to the committee as a result of those making donations.
Planning for the 2011 construction season is currently under way. The committee’s goal for next year is to have five acres of athletic fields planted and a baseball field and a Little League field completed.
Rollins recently announced that interested individuals will soon be able to track progress and obtain information about the park online.
A Web site is under development by Bit Sculptors of Lakeport. Owner Eric Schlange has offered to create the site as a donation to the park. The address will be westsidecommunitypark.org.
The Westside Community Park is located at 1401 Westside Community Park Road, Lakeport. Westside Community Park Road is accessed from Parallel Drive between the Kathy Fowler Auto Dealerships and Mendocino College.
Dennis Rollins is chair of the Westside Community Park Committee.
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EUREKA, Calif. – As news came out this week that a state legislator is suing the state over a pay cut, the North Coast's representative in the state Assembly said that pay cuts for legislators were the right step to take last year
Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro (D-North Coast) said he accepted the 18 percent legislator pay cut in 2009 because it was the right thing – for him – to do and criticized an attempt by Assemblymember Gil Cedillo to undo it.
“My goal is to restore paychecks for my district, not for myself,” Chesbro said. “I accepted that pay cut in 2009. I accept it now. We should be leading by example. And that example should not include complaining about lost pay when so many of the people we represent are dealing with hard times.”
The California Citizens Compensation Commission sets the salaries of state legislators.
In December 2009 the Commission voted to cut legislators’ pay and benefits by 18 percent.
Cedillo, a Democrat from Los Angeles, represents the 45th District in the state Assembly.
He has filed a claim with the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board alleging the cuts are illegal.
Cedillo wants the Claims Board to restore the 18 percent, retroactively, for all 120 legislators.
“We go into the new year with a new governor and the hope and commitment to finally resolve the budget mess,” said Chesbro. “We need to get off on the right foot. And thinking about our own paychecks is not the right way to do that.”
Cedillo is being roundly criticized statewide for taking the action, which critics point out is being taken at a time when the state is struggling financially.
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- Written by: Dennis Fordham
Overcoming the presumption has required either a certificate of independent review or clear and convincing evidence that shows the gift was not the product of duress, menace, fraud, or undue influence.
The presumption of invalidity is meant to protect vulnerable (and usually lonely) dependent adults from predatory persons going after the dependent person’s estate.
Such predation often takes the form of substantial gifts at death in the dependent person’s will or trust. Presently, gifts exceeding $3,000 are considered substantial and so subject to the statute.
The presumption has often raised major concern with respect to even legitimate gifts made to genuine friends (who stepped in when their dependent friend needed help) due to uncertainty over the definition of “care custodian.”
This issue was recognized in 2006 by Chief Justice Ronald George and he invited the Legislature to amend the law to, “protect society as a whole.”
As a result, the California Law Revision Committee recommended that friends who became volunteer caregivers be excluded from the definition of “care custodian.”
Effective Jan. 1, 2011, section 21350 is amended in significant ways intended to protect gifts made to genuine friends who presently might be treated as care custodians.
Let’s examine the major law changes.
Most importantly, “care custodians” will exclude those who provide services without pay provided the care giver has a personal relationship with the dependent adult that began at least 90 days prior to when the volunteer services were provided and at least six months prior to the dependent adult’s death.
In addition, if the dependent adult is admitted to hospice care, such personal relationship must also begin prior to hospice care. Any gift instrument executed during the 90-day time period would make the gift presumptively invalid.
Furthermore, the definition of “dependent adult” is amended. With respect to persons over 65, a dependent adult means someone with “difficulty managing his or her own financial resources or resisting undue influence.”
Persons under 65, however, are only dependent adults if they have “substantial difficulty” in such areas.
Moreover, come 2011 the attorney drafting the gift instrument in question may now issue the certificate of independent review if he or she is truly independent; that is, not conflicted by an interest in the beneficiary of the gift (i.e., disinterested).
These law changes apply to gifts made in legal instruments that become irrevocable on or after Jan. 1, 2011.
Thus, instruments drafted prior to 2011 which become irrevocable after 2010 will be covered by the new 2011 law. Otherwise, the existing 2010 law still applies to gifts made before 2011.
Lastly, section 21350 supplements but does not replace the common law. Common law protections on undue influence still apply. Thus, predators who insinuate themselves into the lives of the vulnerable and use undue influence to coerce a dependent adult into making a gift should still beware.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at
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