The papers in this series can be quoted with due acknowledgements.
Comments are welcome.
Given the limited area and low fertility of their land and the increasing population, mountain farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their livelihoods on the basis of cultivating their own land and are looking for other options. The concern then, over who in the mountains has gained from agricultural research, becomes even more important as the composition of the poor changes. Among the rural poor today, we find smallholders, marginal farmers, and, of course, countless landless agricultural labourers. Rapidly increasing demands caused by the fast growth in human and livestock population in mountain areas are likely to threaten all efforts towards sustainability of mountain agriculture both ecologically and economically. Today, although mountain agricultural research institutions have fully recognised the importance of employing different methods for different agroclimatic zones, they have failed to understand that different strategies are also required to match the needs of big farmers, smallholders, marginal farmers, and the landless.