International Journal of Rural Management

Rapid urban growth has led to an increasing demand for urban land. This land is not readily available within city, but in the rural–urban fringe, due to variety of factors. The conversion of land in rural–urban fringe is leading to the rapid transformations.

 This article, based on qualitative research approach, explores urbanization in Nairobi rural–urban fringe as a case study, while comparing the situation with literature from other situations in developing countries. This article appreciates that urbanization in an urbanizing context such as in rural–urban fringes need be understood at different scales, that’s site or situational. Separating urbanization pressures is not easy and any attempt to classify them in this article does not in any way show that they are independent of each other. The article concludes that urbanization of rural–urban fringes is contingent upon many factors, primary of which is population increase through natural growth and immigration. Population growth is thus a necessary condition for the urbanization in rural–urban fringe. The process that produces population growth is however a subset of the processes that produces urbanization of rural–urban fringe.

Farmers’ groups are being targeted as an important sector to hasten Caribbean agricultural development. The region however, has a recorded history of high levels of failure with farmers’ group development; many are formed but few are sustained to contribute meaningfully to agricultural development. A focus group assessment was conducted with extension officers from St. Vincent, Grenada and Trinidad, three neighbouring independent islands in the Southern Caribbean, to identify the issues related to the failures of farmers’ groups and the actions critically needed for success. The main issues that limit group development include poor leadership, weak task cohesion and low levels of farmer motivation and lack of trust. There was consensus among the participants that improved group dynamics, good governance, increased government involvement and improved farmer motivation can impact the formation, functioning and survivability of farmers’ groups. The findings help extension officers and policy makers to plan interventions that can promote the successful organization of farmers into groups, a key pre-requisite to meet regional agricultural development goals.

Linkage with microfinance is the latest amongst the series of efforts aimed at reforming credit cooperatives in favour of the poor. The article is an attempt to identify and discuss some of the relevant conceptual and policy issues and the emerging lessons of the adoption of microfinance by cooperatives with a focus on the Self-help group (SHG)-Bank Linkage Programme (SBLP) in India. The findings reflect the severe constraints of cooperatives in realizing the twin goals visualized of the linkage viz. inclusion and sustainability. Despite a few noteworthy efforts by the cooperatives, the overall results of the linkage leave much to be desired. Constraints of policy and organizational abilities of cooperatives for adoption of microfinance, not to mention certain inherent limitations of microfinance, have been identified as factors influencing the observed performance. Theoretically, the article points to a possible overriding effect of the historical dilemma of elite capture on the role of cooperatives.

There is always a close and very complex linkage between rural and urban areas. However, failure to properly harness the linkages between rural and urban sectors does not help either rural or urban. To counter this and to ensure development of rural economy, strengthening the linkage between rural and urban areas is important. Studies have identified that promotion and enhancement of food-processing industries is a major key to strengthen rural–urban linkages for development of rural economy. In this article, an attempt has been made to examine the means to increase the strength of rural–urban linkages by promoting agriculture–industry interface for development of rural economy in Assam, a state of the North East India. A social accounting matrix analysis has been carried out to examine the impact of a food processing industry on a neighbouring village of the food processing industry for proper/fruitful rural–urban linkages in the state. The positive economic impact of the industry on the village confirms the enormity of impact a food processing industry can have on the neigbouring villages. The article concludes by advocating for setting up of more food processing industries in Assam for reducing rural–urban divide and ensuring development of rural economy.

This note provides a field narrative about an emerging energy cooperative which was established with the mandate of supplying uninterrupted and clean electricity through solar photovoltaic unit. Formation of energy cooperative was one of the many dimensions of development intervention planned in the programme for ‘Integrated development plan of Durbuk block using renewable energy resources’, by implementing agencies. Field observations provided evidence that the cooperative was socially accepted. The flip side of the burden on the cooperative members was in terms of financial cost—due to cost side technological skewness—in running and maintaining of the solar power unit. The study provides an insight into the social, economic and technological dimensions of programme intervention and their scope for rural development, rather than becoming encumbrance to social capital.