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Despite many efforts over two decades of independence, Timor-Leste's cereal production and agricultural productivity have decreased dramatically, reflected by high food insecurity and rural poverty. This paper analyses the country's current agricultural mechanization efforts to guide future actions that aim to stimulate growth through sustainable mechanization. We combined information from scientific publications, governmental and international cooperation communications, and data collected during field missions to assess the situation. Our study provides recommendations to reverse a failed tractorization campaign and presents a comprehensive overview of a strategy, in alignment with a proposed and renewed national agricultural mechanization policy, that would enable the modernization and sustainable intensification of current food production systems in a nutrition-sensitive, climate-smart, economically viable, and gender-inclusive fashion. The recommendations suggest a focus on scale-appropriate solutions that respond to upland smallholder farmers' capacities and consider good rural transport options, with the first steps to redirect the situation already taken through a technical cooperation program between FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture. Beyond this, a reform of the current government mechanization hire schemes is needed: integrated approaches, as found from business model analyses and training exercises during field missions, are needed, that entail context-specific solutions for targeted rural communities, with special attention given to participatory extension, inclusive co-validation of technologies, and private sector-led business model development around mechanization service delivery. Finally, the authors hope the presented way forward can serve as a roadmap for smallholder farmers and developing nations in similar conditions elsewhere in the world.
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Journal
Circular Agricultural Systems
Journal volume
4
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Place of Publication
United States of America
Publisher
Maximum Academic Press