Shamsheer ul Haq

By Muhammad Imran, Shamsheer Ul Haq and Orhan Ozcatalbas

Around 1.7 billion adults have no access to transaction accounts in the world. The majority of those are poor and women in rural areas of two developing regions of the world (South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). Rural areas of these regions are home to the poor and poverty, hunger, unemployment/underemployment is widespread phenomenon. Access to financial services is crucial for economic development. However, poor and smallholder have been neglected by traditional banks for a long time. Microcredit a development model to provide loans to the poor who have no, or little collateral emerged in Bangladesh and has been adopted in many countries of the world. In this chapter, microcredit as a solution to much of the problems of the rural areas has been discussed. Over time there has been a shift in objectives of rural development. Rural development nowadays is about an overall improvement of the human quality of life in terms of economic, social, political, and environmental, issues. Access to microcredit has a positive impact on three dimensions of sustainable rural development; social, economic, and environmental. Microcredit helps in the alleviation of poverty, employment, entrepreneurship, higher productivity from agriculture, women empowerment, gender equality, reduced rural outmigration, better health and education, green entrepreneurship, and adoption of modern technology/inputs in agriculture.

Part of the book: Sustainable Rural Development Perspective and Global Challenges

By Pomi Shahbaz, Shamsheer ul Haq and Ismet Boz

Sustainable farming is critical for rural development and global food security, but it is threatened by intensive agriculture and climate change. Conservation agriculture (CA) is a sustainable farming system developed in response to intensive agriculture, environmental degradation, and climate change caused by traditional agriculture systems. This chapter discusses the role of CA in sustainable farming and examines the factors influencing CA adoption globally through a review of previous studies. The review results indicated that CA assists farmers increase farm sustainability by influencing economic, social, and environmental dimensions through minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversification. CA adoption aims at maintaining soil fertility, improving farm yield, and reducing the use of external inputs necessary for sustainable farming. Therefore, the number of CA-adopting countries has grown significantly over the last decade but its adoption is constrained by a variety of factors such as farmers’ demographic characteristics, farm characteristics, institutional factors, capital ownership, cognitive factors, and farm manager entrepreneurial ability. Moreover, abundance of small-scale farming and a lack of awareness about the role of CA in sustainable farming also pose a challenge to the global adoption of CA. Farmers’ entrepreneurial abilities and awareness of CA benefits should be improved to increase adoption of CA and sustainable farming.

Part of the book: Smart Farming