A classical case was Rwanda, where population growth made farming unviable for the new generation (farm sizes were continuously split from parents to kids) while political interests did not support an investment in the off-farm or urban sector to absorb unemployed rural youth, hanging without work around, very perceptive to anyone telling them whom to blame. That was the general situation which supported according to what I read significantly the genocide in the nineties.
But important for us in this context: Rwanda was at that time not only the famous “country of the 1000 hills”, but also a paradise for development aid and research and internally called the country of the 1000 projects, and all of them flagged ‘sustainable intensification’ working over 20+ years on agro-forestry, green manure, etc. etc. not noticing that the youth looked desperately for off-farm options! CGIAR centers were there, but no blame, I was there too, not thinking beyond the farm.
Apropos population growth: The urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all the population growth expected over the next four decades while at the same time drawing in some of the rural population. As a result, the world rural population is projected to start decreasing in about a decade and there will likely be 0.3 billion fewer rural inhabitants in 2050 than today. In Africa and Oceania this shift will start with some delay. Africa will still see an increase in rural populations till about 2050, till it starts decreasing. https://esa.un.org/unup/pdf/WUP2011_Highlights.pdf
A classical case was Rwanda, where population growth made farming unviable for the new generation (farm sizes were continuously split from parents to kids) while political interests did not support an investment in the off-farm or urban sector to absorb unemployed rural youth, hanging without work around, very perceptive to anyone telling them whom to blame. That was the general situation which supported according to what I read significantly the genocide in the nineties.
But important for us in this context: Rwanda was at that time not only the famous “country of the 1000 hills”, but also a paradise for development aid and research and internally called the country of the 1000 projects, and all of them flagged ‘sustainable intensification’ working over 20+ years on agro-forestry, green manure, etc. etc. not noticing that the youth looked desperately for off-farm options! CGIAR centers were there, but no blame, I was there too, not thinking beyond the farm.
Apropos population growth: The urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all the population growth expected over the next four decades while at the same time drawing in some of the rural population. As a result, the world rural population is projected to start decreasing in about a decade and there will likely be 0.3 billion fewer rural inhabitants in 2050 than today. In Africa and Oceania this shift will start with some delay. Africa will still see an increase in rural populations till about 2050, till it starts decreasing. https://esa.un.org/unup/pdf/WUP2011_Highlights.pdf