Strategies for Stimulating Poverty-alleviating Growth in the Rural ...

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trading, and agroprocessing activities such as rice milling, fish and rubber processing and
saw milling dominate the RNFE (Table 5). Each rural region offers its own distinct flavor
and requires site-specific investigation to establish a good understanding of future
opportunities and constraints to rural nonfarm growth.
c. Importance of large firms
Though most RNF enterprises are small and employ less than 5 workers, larger firms
often account for the majority of output and incomes. Large firms play particularly
important roles in agroprocessing, export and trading activities. In many situations, large
firms occupy strategic positions in local supply chains. Because of this, they many times
govern prospects for small firm growth. In some cases, large firms compete directly with
small firms. In other instances, their interests prove complementary, with large firms
supplying key inputs and marketing output of smaller nonfarm firms (Table 6).
Though much prior work on the rural nonfarm economy has focused exclusively on
small and microenterprises, operational work increasingly recognizes the importance of
viewing small and large firms together within the vertical supply chains that bind them
together (Figures 1-5).