Poor rural people practice subsistence agriculture, and their livelihoods are based on crop cultivation, herding and fishing, where available. Smallholder farmers are hindered by the limited size of their landholdings, low rates of productivity and an inability to improve their incomes. Because of the lack of rainfall and domestic water supplies, for most farmers the growing season is brief and crop failures are frequent.

     Because their access to credit, distribution and marketing channels is limited, and because they have inadequate technical knowledge and poor skills in production and marketing, farmers find it difficult to break out of the cycle of low productivity and income. Seasonal migration of rural workers in pursuit of wage labor opportunities on mechanized and irrigated farms and in urban areas has become widespread.