Rural Poverty

Rural poverty is poverty concentrated in agricultural and other non-urban areas, commonly linked to small or insecure landholding, low farm productivity, limited access to credit, markets and infrastructure, and, in many regions, to the broader disadvantage of subsistence and smallholder farming households relative to urban ones. It remains the majority location of extreme poverty worldwide even as urban poverty grows, which is why rural development and smallholder agricultural productivity remain central tools of poverty-reduction policy.