Agriculture in developing countries: cultural differences, vectors of sustainable development,

digitalization, and international experience

Abstract

This chapter conducts empirical research aimed at determining the specifics of agriculture in developing
countries. A unique sample of developing countries from different geographical regions of the world –
i.e., countries with vivid and strong cultural differences – is formed. For different geographical regions of
the world, the authors determine the vectors of sustainable development of agriculture. For this, based
on the methodological approach, which is developed in Chapter 5, the authors determine the
sustainability of agriculture in the countries of the sample. The method of regression analysis is used to
determine the contribution of various potential vectors (digitalization of knowledge, digitalization of
technologies, digitalization of economic practices based on "World Digital Competitiveness Ranking
2021" IMD) to the achievement of agriculture's sustainability in each designated geographical region of
the world. As a result, the applied recommendations to increase agriculture's sustainability for each
region of the world are suggested. A systemic view of the current problems of agriculture's sustainability
in developing countries and the current level of this sustainability is formed.

Keywords: agriculture, developing countries, cultural differences, vectors of sustainable development,

digitalization, international experience.
The specifics of agriculture in developing countries.

Rural output has seen a tremendous transformation in agricultural nations over the last two decades.
Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, the World Bank and its numerous agricultural research agencies
have successfully promoted accepting modern (very synthetic information-based) rural techniques, such
as the Green Revolution's 'natural occurrence' seeds and promising huge yields (Shiva, 2000). All
ranchers, including the poor, benefited from these high-innovation practices. Rates were expected to
climb, implying that incomes would increase as well. On the other hand, developing nations cannot
afford to rely on foreign sources of information to such an extent. This was aggravated further during
the 1970s and 1980s by the oil and debt crises. The expansion of loan bundles from global monetary
foundations was facilitated by developing countries' economic and financial turmoil. The underlying
reform strategies were then made a condition for governments seeking finance. Around 100 countries
have been compelled to execute primary transformation packages since the 1980s. On the one hand,
the arrangements remembered slowed progress, while on the other hand, they hampered the
transformation of indigenous horticultural output for trades (Shiva, 2000).

Small ranchers from Central to South America, Africa, and Asia have had surprisingly similar experiences
during the previous two decades. Numerous individuals have been compelled to abandon diverse
traditional polycultures in favor of monocultures to compete in international economic sectors. For
instance, arrangements for augmentation administrations and loans were frequently based on ranchers
tolerating innovations in trade crops. Ranchers have faced a similar constraint in shifting to export crops
as nearby prices for staples and traditional yields have plummeted due to small subsidized imports,
primarily from developed nations, flooding neighborhood markets. For the bulk of small ranchers, the
cycle has been one of deliberate deprivation. Numerous individuals have been removed from both
indoor and outdoor growth. Rather than alleviating food scarcity, which has repeatedly been cited as a
reason for public interest in rural innovation and hybrid seeds, global food surpluses are increasing, yet,
unexpectedly, appetite and food insecurity continue to be essential concerns for the most vulnerable.

Small farmers and a market on the property.

Agribusiness continues to be the primary source of business, employment, and income for between 50%
and 90% of the population in non-industrial countries. The majority of this rate is accounted for by small
ranchers, who account for between 70% and 95% of the farming population (Kirsten and Sartorius,
2002). As a result, small ranchers account for a sizable chunk of the population. Historically, they have
survived solely by resource generation. Throughout the last two decades, different individuals have
experimented with various methods of crop distribution, with varying degrees of initial success but
numerous tragic failures. They have profited little from agricultural diversification or modernity. As a
result of the globalization of the market, the number of small players has decreased, as explained in
greater detail below. However, they should not be overlooked financially. Their underestimation has
perpetuated an endless cycle of deprivation for sectors of society, an unusually imbalanced turn of
events, and, as a result, the failure of many non-industrial governments to achieve acceptable levels of
overall turn of events.

Rural residents are impoverished to the point of possessing little purchasing power. They do not
establish a significant market for home industries along these lines. As a result of domestic company
sectors being too tiny to justify considerable financial activity, creation is frequently channeled toward
unknown economic sectors and metropolitan elites. As a result, economic interest is at an all-time low,
making it unable to support a broad-based, viable turn of events. This results in a significant reliance on
unknown business sectors and a lack of underlying motivation (which can result in) increased
expectations for poor people's daily comforts. Simply put, poverty becomes a never-ending cycle that
acts as a stumbling block to advancement.

Uniform, Affordable, and Agroecological Food Production Systems

If small farmers in agricultural nations are to survive – and they must work for developing countries to
progress – we need more equitable food production models that can continue to offer small farmers a
viable source of income and access to their daily food needs. Ranchers on the margins lose out as food
production systems destroy the environment and soils, while global bureaucrats shift to better pastures.
We require more earth-friendly methods of agriculture that contribute rather than relying on the assets
as are necessary for long-term food production.

Today, agribusiness corporations are promoting "existence sciences" and its genetically engineered
seeds and creation operations as the next revolution to resolve the world's hunger problem. There are
promises of increased output, fewer competitors, and more nutritious food varieties (for example,
Nutrient A rice). Surprisingly, as with the last upheaval, the appetite issue has been improperly prefaced,
with the erroneous premise that there will not be enough food to feed the world, rather than the more
pertinent inquiry of food transportation and availability (Reardon et al.,2009).

Genetically modified (GM) seeds and production procedures will replicate the Green Revolution's
benefits for small ranchers. Additionally, synthetic information is abundant in GM crops. Because the
innovation is licensed to international corporations, the socially distorted effects will be comparable, if
not worse. Small farmers will face similar difficulties in the supply chain. They will be powerless in the
face of delegates, contract employees, and exporters and will be forced to deal with the worst-case
scenario for climate and harvest. They will earn comparable returns, if any, to players in pre-and post-
farmgate operations, such as international food, transportation, and retail partnerships.

Natural dangers, on the other hand, are almost certain to be as destructive. Until now, all information
has concentrated on pesticide use that was excessive or prolonged. Pesticide-induced genetic resistance
is also present in weeds and insects. Because GM crops will also be cultivated in monocultures, natural
challenges to biodiversity will exist. Given the as-yet-unknown metabolic consequences of hereditarily
changed yields and their spread to wild cousins, as well as the as-yet-unknown health consequences for
consumers, the harm could be substantially worse. Compared to contemporary high-input frameworks,
alternative agroecological strategies for food production for family and neighborhood consumption can
provide the country's poor with stable food supplies, adequate access to food, job security, and natural
manageability for long-term food production.

The vectors of sustainable development of agriculture

 1. Optimization of Inputs: Sustainable creation practices are used to expand on-ranch assets.
Within implied inputs, examples of substituted assets include family labor, serious, touching
frameworks, reused supplements, vegetable nitrogen, crop pivots, the use of sustainable solar
energy, and improved pests, soils, and woods. These adjustments, according to studies, can be
made while preserving yields and frequently result in improved net homestead profit. These
revenues can benefit the community by expanding nearby retail opportunities and establishing a
more stable fee base.
2. Diversification: Sustainable agriculture focuses on diverse pruning and animal frameworks to
support healthy soils and minimize purchased inputs. By reducing the financial risk associated
with the environment, difficulties, and changeable farming industry sectors, expanding can
result in more constant ranch income. It allows ranchers to remain on the land and safeguards
the local economy from the shock of a substantial decline in a single product/industry.
3. Conservation of Natural Capital: Discounting capital resources is a standard accounting
technique. Ranchers have not historically deteriorated average capital as a result of growing
procedures that do not track assets. In general, the misfortune is genuine, affecting yields, ranch
value, and maintainability by maximizing the efficiency of land and water resources while
improving human well-being and the climate; decent horticulture generates financial value.
4. The capture of value-added products: The promotion of harvests and manufactured goods is by
far the most vulnerable link in the ranchers' task in the 'farm to table' food system. Ranchers
should advocate for strategies that increase significant value-added on the homestead to
develop and sustain truly sustainable horticulture. While individual ranchers can design,
measure, and sell their products directly, many other value-added systems require a more
significant number of assets than a single rancher can afford. As a result, these value-added
systems will require establishing a cooperative of local ranchers and a cooperative relationship
with the surrounding community.
5. Community: All networks require elements of sustainable agriculture. To promote sustainable
agriculture, we must acknowledge the rural-urban connection, the conflicts, and the vast
freedoms. The benefits of a viable producing framework include a shared obligation to benefit,
food security, proper food handling, open space for water recharge, a healthy natural
environment for greenery, wildlife, and recreation, and a supportive and robust social and
economic local community foundation. At the moment, our urban networks are distinct from
cultivating networks in their thought processes and their standard organization, most notably in
their understanding of the entire food production and conveyance framework. Recognize the
role cultivation has played in balancing our local area; otherwise, we will continue obliterating
our provincial texture and preferred ways of life. As a result, to ensure the continued viability of
decent regional and metropolitan networks, we must rekindle a sense of frequently considering
our neighbors' government assistance.

Contribution of various potential vectors to the achievement of agriculture’s sustainability in each

designated geographical region of the world
Preserving critical assets for agricultural success also entails managing soil so that it retains its legitimacy
as a complex and well-ordered constituent constituted of mineral particles, natural matter, air, water,
and living organic creatures. Ranchers concerned with long-term viability frequently focus on soil,
believing that healthy soil fosters healthy crops and animals. Maintaining a regular schedule of soil work
suggests a commitment to preserving or, in any event, expanding natural soil matter. Natural matter in
soil has essential functions as a source and sink of nutrients, a substrate for microbial action, and a
buffer against variations in acridity, water content, and toxins. Additionally, soil natural matter
development can aid in minimizing CO2 expansion and, as a result, environmental modification. Another
critical role of natural soil matter is to provide a superior soil structure, which results in more excellent
water entry, reduced overflow, improved waste, and increased strength, all of which contribute to the
reduced breeze and water disintegration.

Due to a high reliance on synthetic manures, agroecosystems have been cut off from the internal cycling
of critical plant nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Although phosphate minerals for compost
are currently mined, worldwide stockpiles will last another 50 to 100 years. As a result, phosphate prices
are expected to rise unless new deposits are identified, and improved phosphate recovery from garbage
is accomplished. Reusing nitrogen and phosphorus (at the homestead and community level), increasing
the effectiveness of compost application, and depending on natural supplement sources (creature and
green manure) are all critical components of sustainable horticulture (Gliessman et al., 1998). Reusing
supplements is accomplished by enhanced horticulture, which integrates animals and harvest
generation spatially. As a result, broad blended yield animal frameworks, particularly in developing
nations, can make a significant contribution to rural sustainability and global food security in the future.

Questions of social value and equity usually arise during discussions about sustainable horticulture. In
most industrialized nations, wages for ranch employment are so low that their horticulture industries
rely primarily on temporary labor from less fortunate countries, leaving ranchers subject to changing
movement arrangements and putting pressure on government social administrations (Pannell and
Schilizzi, 1999). The unclear legal status of a sizable proportion of these workers also contributes to their
frequently low income and standard of living, lack of professional stability, lack of prospects for
advancement, and deviations from the middle of word-linked health insurance in other undertakings.
Pooling assets among numerous ranchers to improve lodging, dividing work between ranches with
varying yields to reduce the irregularity of job openings, teaching laborers to obtain and work their
homesteads, and experimenting with novel approaches to provide appropriate medical coverage and
educational liberties for representatives are largely omitted.

Due to the increasing consolidation of food producers and advertisers and homestead input providers,
ranchers, lack the financial resources to negotiate higher prices for their bits of feedback and harvests. It
effectively eliminates their revenue, leaving many ranchers with few assets to work on natural and
working circumstances (Sheail, 1995). Ranchers might strengthen their financial position by establishing,
preparing, or promoting cooperatives. Ranchers can further increase their share of the monetary value
of their harvests by performing some processing on-ranch before selling them, developing higher-value
forte yields, generating direct marketing opportunities that circumvent agents, and exploring specialist
markets. In the long run, arrangements that direct solidification can also benefit ranchers.
As a result of these financial strains on ranchers, many rural networks have become increasingly
vulnerable as homesteads, and associated rural ventures close their doors. Monetary policy and tax
policies that promote increased agricultural productivity on family farms can establish the groundwork
for stronger national economies. Buyers can also play a role within the boundaries of the market system;
through their purchases, they communicate powerfully to manufacturers, merchants, and others
involved in the framework about what they value, such as natural quality and social worth.

Finally, some of the same financial pressures that have harmed on-ranch manageability have created
social value issues for purchasers in low-wage networks, who are frequently left without access to
nutritious food as conventional retailers relocate to more profitable areas to shore up their thin net
revenues. These problems are addressed through food development, and promotion programs that
include community and house nurseries, rancher advertisements, the employment of new
neighborhood ranch produce in school lunch projects, and local food cooperatives.

The applied recommendations to increase agriculture's sustainability for each region of the world are
suggested.

1. Individuals from agricultural nations should specify just those arrangements that their
economies and enterprises are equipped for and from which they can profit. This should be
viewed as a critical component of truly successful and differentiated Special and Differential
Treatment. Additional new difficulties should be examined not because the framework is
already overburdened but because they extend beyond the realm of trading and impinge on
states' internal sway. Agricultural nations now require more space for layout, not less, to plan
their development path.
2. In agribusiness, such a plurilateral structure implies that non-industrialized nations whose rural
areas are not prepared for competition and whose small the agreement will seriously impact
ranchers and food security will seek to withdraw from it until their ranchers and economies are
prepared (Tolley et al.,1982). It is particularly noteworthy in light of the unfair competition and
dumping that characterize many non-industrial states' trade with advanced nations. This is not
to say that governments should shut down completely, but rather to acknowledge that massive
detonation advancement has wreaked havoc on the world's most vulnerable areas and that
non-industrial nations with a diverse range of development needs should be able to
painstakingly time and construct their mix with the global economy.
3. It is vital for small ranchers in agricultural countries to have proper protection from novel
development methods, as the market does not work to their advantage, as it does for the
prominent players (Diaz-Bonilla and Robinson, 2010). Thus, trade policy should secure the
sustained appropriateness of small ranchers and rural poor in non-industrial countries.
Additionally, they require safeguards against dumping and undue competition from foreign-
sponsored manufacturers. Providing more security for a country's citizens will result in more
even and equitable development for nations as a whole. 
 References.

Arnon, I. (1981). Modernization of agriculture in developing countries: resources, potentials, and

problems. Modernization of agriculture in developing countries: resources, potentials and

problems.

Bryld, E. (2003). Potentials, problems, and policy implications for urban agriculture in developing

countries. Agriculture and human values, 20(1), 79-86.

Diaz-Bonilla, E., & Robinson, S. (2010). Macroeconomics, macrosectoral policies, and agriculture in

developing countries. Handbook of agricultural economics, 4, 3035-3213.

Francis, C., Lieblein, G., Gliessman, S., Breland, T. A., Creamer, N., Harwood, R., ... & Poincelot, R. (2003).

Agroecology: The ecology of food systems. Journal of sustainable agriculture, 22(3), 99-118.

Gliessman, S. R., Engles, E., & Krieger, R. (1998). Agroecology: ecological processes in sustainable

agriculture. CRC press.

Hinrichs, C. C., & Lyson, T. A. (Eds.). (2007). Remaking the North American food system: Strategies for

sustainability. U of Nebraska Press.

Kingsbury, N. (2009). Hybrid: the history and science of plant breeding. University of Chicago Press.

Kirsten, J., & Sartorius, K. (2002). Linking agribusiness and small-scale farmers in developing countries: is

there a new role for contract farming?. Development Southern Africa, 19(4), 503-529.

MacRae, R. J., Hill, S. B., Henning, J., & Mehuys, G. R. (1989). Agricultural science and sustainable

agriculture: a review of the existing scientific barriers to sustainable food production and

potential solutions. Biological agriculture & horticulture, 6(3), 173-219.

McSorley, R., & Porazinska, D. L. (2001). Elements of sustainable agriculture. Nematropica, 1-10.

Pannell, D. J., & Schilizzi, S. (1999). Sustainable agriculture: a matter of ecology, equity, economic

efficiency or expedience?. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 13(4), 57-66.

Reardon, T., Barrett, C. B., Berdegué, J. A., & Swinnen, J. F. (2009). Agrifood industry transformation and

small farmers in developing countries. World Development, 37(11), 1717-1727.

Rosset, P. M., & Altieri, M. A. (1997). Agroecology versus input substitution: A fundamental

contradiction of sustainable agriculture. Society & Natural Resources, 10(3), 283-295.

Schiff, M. W., & Vald, A. (1992). The plundering of agriculture in developing countries. World Bank

Publications.

Sheail, J. (1995). Elements of sustainable agriculture: the UK experience, 1840-1940. The Agricultural

History Review, 178-192.

Shiva, V. (2000). Why industrial agriculture cannot feed the world. The Ecologist.

Smit, B., & Smithers, J. (1993). Sustainable agriculture: interpretations, analyses and

prospects. Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 16(3), 499-524.

Spitzer, S. (2003). Industrial agriculture and corporate power. Global Pesticide Campaigner, 13(2), 1.

Tolley, G. S., Thomas, V., & Chung, M. W. (1982). Agricultural price policies and the developing countries.

Johns Hopkins University Press.