Current issue

81 Vol 21-1. May - August 2012

Back issues

80 Vol 20-4. Feb-May 2012

79 Vol 20 - Issue 3 - Autumn 2011

78 - Vol 20 - Issue 2 - Summer 2011

77 - Vol 20 - Issue 1 - Spring 2011

76 - Vol 19 - Issue 4 - Winter 2010

see all back issues

What they say about us...

Great job, Mike! Practical Farm Ideas is by far the best agricultural press I buy. A sound investment! Keep doing what you're doing forever!

Norman Scott

If you'd like your comments featured here, please contact us

A leg-up for the rural poor

The award won't silence critics of his Grameen Bank, who say his loans don't help the poorest, that his customers are simply helped to get by, not prosper, that many haven't the necessary skills and abilities to create really viable businesses. So what, says Mike Donovan, editor of FARM IDEAS. His loans provide help where none otherwise exists. Mike would like to see the FARM IDEAS concept of sharing innovative ideas being adapted for use in the developing world. Simple tips on how to better grow crops and tend livestock could benefit millions, and may even allow some to make even more of the small funding they can obtain.

Mike's own experience of farmers in the UK and Ireland has been very positive. "Very few payments go wrong, farmers are a pretty honest bunch who may take their time to make their minds up about things, but when they do they honour their commitments."

"Farming in the UK and the developed world may be in a different age technically to the countries in which Grameen operates, but the forces are in many ways comparable. Agri companies in Bangladesh see the small farmer as a customer, and they will use the same sales techniques as their counterparts in the UK. Farmers all over the world are the customers of very large corporations which make and supply machinery and inputs such as seed and fertiliser. Their customers are businesses that are small, have imperfect knowledge and can be gullible," says FARM IDEAS editor Mike Donovan.