Smallholders and rural growth in Solomon Islands

Abstract

The quasi-subsistence livelihood strategies adopted by smallholders in Solomon Islands have proved to be remarkably resilient. But population and other pressures suggest that these strategies will not provide a basis for maintaining, let alone increasing living standards in the longer term. Greater specialisation, which will require investment and resource reallocation at the household level, is required to increase productivity. The binding constraint to increased productivity is not access to agricultural technology. Rather it is the policy and institutional factors that increase the uncertainty and costs of interacting with domestic and international markets.