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This article explores the importance of peasant farming worldwide, the debate about its disappearance and the way it is being impacted by differentiated policies. It takes two examples, Tunisia and Egypt, during post-colonial times. In both cases policies tended to favour the modernization of agriculture, ignoring the contribution of peasant farming to the national economies. But interestingly the data show a surprisingly significant importance and increase in the number of small farms in both countries. While theoretical debates continue about the disappearance of peasantries, reality demonstrates that peasant farming is a formidable and resilient buffer for human societies, which helps stabilize, balance and enrich them.

A major obstruction in the development of sustainable agriculture is the weakness of the financial and banking sectors in supporting smallholder farming. While farmers need to invest in their farms, they struggle to find credit schemes adapted to their specific needs. This study explores the literature on a range of credit systems applied in different geographical and historical contexts to analyse the underlying drivers of their successes or otherwise. In light of this review, the study investigates a farmers’ association, Alfredo Namitete (AN), in Mozambique, offering a range of agroecology credit modalities. It is then assessed as to whether a new business model initiated with seed funding could be self-managed by the association itself and lead to greater autonomy. The AN pilot tested three schemes between 2015 and 2019. Based on the findings, i.e., better production, increased revenue and greater self-determination, the study combines elements for a new business model for small-scale lending. It concludes that to be effective, a credit scheme needs to meet several conditions simultaneously: believe in the genuine will to repay, abolish the lender–borrower distance, ensure a role for women in decision making, add a savings mechanism, combine individual and collective investments and, finally, reserve funds for solidarity and climate issues.

This article considers a phenomenon seldom analyzed: The return to the roots, to family and friends, to the home village, when hardship hits. It looks into the role of peasant farming as a refuge, for those whose livelihoods have deteriorated, usually due to economic and financial crises for which they have no responsibility and even less say. Listening to the testimonies of those who go back to the countryside, or those returning to the sea (with examples in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Iceland), one hears a mix of struggle and hope, loneliness and fear, success and fulfilment. A destiny not always chosen, an imposed tabula rasa. These movements usually go unnoticed, but some governments provide the means to facilitate them, understanding the potential they hold for the country's wealth. A few examples are chosen here to inspire policymakers and provide insights into how to revive national economies, particularly in times of financial and economic hardship. These examples also lead us to reconsider our perspectives on the gap between the rural and the urban, and invite us to see what we may consider as a continuum of mutually reinforcing synergies.

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