Final answer:
Small farmers can compete with large agriculture by practicing sustainable land management, diversifying crops to improve soil fertility and reduce costs, and using direct-to-consumer sales methods to connect directly with customers.
Step-by-step explanation:
Small farmers can adopt several initiatives to compete with large-scale agriculture.
- Sustainable land management has been beneficial in enhancing average production levels and stability on smallholder farms. Additionally, small-scale production alleviates some 21st-century challenges from global supply chains by enabling communities to grow their own food in harmony with local climate shifts.
- Sustainable Agriculture Systems entailed in practices like crop rotation, composting, and agro-forestry can also help improve soil fertility and increase long-term food security for farmers in places like Malawi.
- Another approach is to emphasize on diversifying crops. By growing a variety of crops, farmers can reduce risks associated with a single crop failure and can also break the cycle of pests and diseases, ultimately reducing pesticide costs. Moreover, farmers facing fierce competition from identical products can switch to another crop, which may be profitable, thus not being constrained to a single market.
- Direct-to-consumer sales methods such as community-supported agriculture (CSA), farmers' markets, and online sales platforms can further enable small farmers to compete by connecting directly with their customers and receiving a better share of the profit margin.