The purpose of the FAO Diversification booklets is to raise awareness and provide decision support information about opportunities at farm and local community level to increase the incomes of small-scale farmers.

Each booklet focuses on a farm or non-farm enterprise that can be integrated into small farms to increase incomes and enhance livelihoods.

The enterprises profiled in the FAO Diversification booklets are suitable for smallholder farmers in terms of resource requirements, additional costs, exposure to risk and complexity. The products or services generated by the enterprises are suitable for meeting demand on a growing, or already strong, local market and are not dependent on an export market.

The main target audience for these booklets are people and organizations that provide advisory, business and technical support services to resource- poor small-scale farmers and local communities in low- and middle-income countries. It is hoped that enough information is given to help these support service providers to consider new income-generating opportunities and how these might enable small-scale farmers to take action. What are the potential benefits? What are farmer requirements and constraints? What are critical 'success factors'?

The FAO Diversification booklets are also targeted to policy-makers and programme managers in government and non-governmental organizations. What actions might policy-makers take to create enabling environments for small-scale farmers to diversify into new income-generating activities? The FAO Diversification booklets are not intended to be technical 'how to do it' guidelines. Readers will need to seek more information or technical support, so as to provide farmer advisory and support activities relating to the introduction of new income-generating activities. To assist in this respect, each booklet identifies additional sources of information, technical support and web site addresses.

A CD has been prepared with a full series of FAO Diversification booklets and FAO technical guides, together with complementary guides on market research, financing, business planning, etc. Copies of the CD are available on request from FAO. FAO Diversification booklets can also be downloaded from the FAO Internet site [click here].