“You are impoverished when the land owns you and not the other way”
One Word, Two Realities
Consider meeting someone in the French countryside of Provence. Picture their house, job, neighbors, and surroundings. Now consider someone in a remote village of sub-Saharan Africa. Imagine their home, daily work, income, and community. Both places are called “villages,” yet the images you had in mind for each of these “villagers” could not be more different.
In developed countries, “village” often suggests comfort and choice. Many residents don’t farm at all; they simply prefer a quieter lifestyle outside the city. In developing countries, however, “village” typically refers to people who farm with only their family’s help. These “solonist farmers” have limited access to agrotech, minimal knowledge support, no safety net, and they face a daily struggle to secure even the next meal.
The Difficult Shift From Tribe to Village
For millions of years, humans lived in tightly knit tribes, relying on hunting, gathering, and shared social bonds. This tribal life is etched into our DNA, shaping our evolution from apes to modern Homo sapiens. Then, around 12,000 years ago, the Agricultural Revolution encouraged families to settle permanently on a single plot of land. The tribe’s broad communal support gave way to smaller, family-based units. In tribal times, an individual in trouble could rely on the entire group; after the shift to farming, that safety net was often reduced to one’s immediate family.
When you think about poverty and hunger, consider who steps in to help: a tight-knit tribe-like community or a single family.
Historically, the village lifestyle was far from idyllic. It took roughly 6,000 years before half of humanity embraced farming. The work was repetitive and physically exhausting, diets narrowed compared to hunter-gatherers, and proximity to livestock increased disease risk. Rather than owning their land, many farmers felt bound to it, often unable to leave even when conditions turned dire. In many ways, the land owned them more than they owned it.
The Illusion of the “Good Old Life”
Modern problems—pollution, crowding, stress—can make us yearn for “simpler times.” But picturing a quaint, picturesque European village is very different from the harsh reality faced by millions of solonist farmers across developing countries. One missed rainy season or pest infestation can wipe out their entire annual income. With minimal infrastructure and no external support, they battle hunger and debt every single day.
We risk overlooking these struggles if our mental image of a “village” is shaped by European prosperity. For many across the developing world, village life means unrelenting labor and persistent poverty—not the romantic, carefree idyll we sometimes imagine.
Realities of Farming: My Personal View
I grew up on a Kibbutz—a communal setting often likened to a village, particularly in its early days when agriculture was its sole source of income. From childhood through my teenage years, I spent countless hours weeding in the cotton fields, picking apples under a punishing sun, collecting eggs while stooping in the chicken coop, and pruning orchards in the cold, rainy winters of the Judean Mountains.
Sunspots and sunburn mark my face, neck, and arms—reminders of those long days and years. I don’t romanticize agriculture or “life in the village” because I know firsthand what it means to be a farmer. Yet I consider myself fortunate: I was born into a community that, thanks to its organizational structure, functions like a tribe on the social level but operates like a modern company when it comes to livelihood. We welcomed innovation and new knowledge, so by the time I turned 18, machinery had already taken over much of the backbreaking work. Furthermore, being part of the Kibbutz community, I always knew I had the entire community behind me whenever I faced a challenge. I never feared outside threats nor did I ever experience poverty or hunger.
Solonist farmers, by contrast, lack that collective support. Professionally and economically, many have barely advanced in the past 50 years. They still work the land using the same old technologies, relying on their family workforce, under the same blazing sun and physical strain endured by previous generations. Without backup systems to help them expand, invest, or even survive a bad season, breaking out of this cycle is nearly impossible without external intervention. If parents can’t save enough, their children inevitably face the same unrelenting hardships.
Cooperation vs. Isolation
Progress or poverty often hinges on whether we work together or alone. Tribal life, our most profound social heritage, was grounded in shared roles and collective defense. The Industrial Revolution, followed by the rise of the Private Limited Company (LTD), demonstrated how large-scale collaboration (factories, corporations) could boost output. Modern structures, e.g., cooperatives, Kibbutzim, and LTDs, bring us closer to the communal dynamics of the tribal era: pooling resources, sharing risks, and investing in technology and innovation as a unified group.
Meanwhile, solonist farming remains outside any type of cooperative life or operational framework. More than 550 million smallholders worldwide toil on tiny plots of land, exposed to every fluctuation in weather, health, and market prices. Without a cooperative or a LTD company safety net, a single bad year can turn into a lifelong setback. As history shows time and again, there is no shortage of “bad years”, which is why persistent poverty remains so difficult to overcome.
Why Change Is Needed
The village once propelled humanity forward, yet it was never meant to be our final stage. By replacing the tribe’s broad safety net with smaller family networks, it fell behind modern, professional organizations in overall efficiency. Today, over half the global population lives in cities—a number that keeps rising. Some believe that urban migration solves rural poverty, but rapid, unplanned growth in cities often leads to overcrowded slums and new social problems, as seen in places like Nigeria and Bangladesh.
Real change demands two decisions:
Reject the present model that condemns people to hardship.
Envision a better future—one that harnesses modern structures to uplift rural communities.
If we simply preserve the “village” as it is, we also preserve poverty. While the image of a charming rural haven may be appealing, it fades quickly in the face of harsh realities. By guiding rural development toward more cooperative, business-oriented models, we can transform outdated villages into thriving centers of growth.
Improved Version
If we simply preserve the “village” as it is, we also preserve poverty. While the image of a charming rural haven may be appealing, it fades quickly in the face of harsh realities. By guiding rural development toward more cooperative, business-oriented models, we can turn outdated villages into thriving centers of growth. In doing so, communities that once relied on outside support can become self-sustaining forces—capable of helping themselves and contributing to broader progress.
Breaking the Village Illusion
Change is inevitable. Yet in the case of the “village,” will it be guided or left to chance? For millions of years, our ancestors honed communal survival in tribal groups and then pioneered industrial methods that delivered unprecedented productivity. The next logical step is to merge these lessons—tribal-level cooperation and modern efficiency—to shape new frameworks for rural life and, ultimately, for the wider world.
We can honor history without clinging to outdated models. Prolonging the “village illusion” means leaving countless families stuck in subsistence farming. By drawing on past and present successes, we can apply proven methods—or even create entirely new ones—to tackle poverty at its roots and foster genuine prosperity without forcing everyone into overcrowded cities.
Ultimately, we must choose whether to let nostalgia blind us to Solonists' real suffering or acknowledge the truth and forge a better path. By discarding old illusions and leveraging our strongest communal instincts, organizational structures, and technological advances, we can transform rural life into something far more fruitful, efficient, and humane for everyone who calls the village “home”.
Takeaway Messages
» ‘Village’ means prosperity in developed nations but poverty in developing ones.
» Romanticizing village life hides the reality of poverty and hardship.
» Prosperity thrives on cooperation—solonist farming traps millions in stagnation.
==> Looking for an insightful speaker on poverty, agriculture, and community development? Invite me to share how innovative models like the Kibbutz can transform rural economies and create lasting prosperity for farmers and smallholders. Let's start the conversation!
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"Mental and Economic Freedom Are Interconnected."
See you soon,
Nimrod
Dr. Nimrod Israely is the CEO and Founder of Dream Valley and Biofeed companies and the Chairman and Co-founder of the IBMA conference. +972-54-2523425 (WhatsApp), or email nisraely@biofeed.co.il
P.S.
If you missed it, here is a link to last week's blog, “A Manual for Prosperity”.
P.P.S.
Here are ways we can work together to help your agro sector and rural communities step forward and shift from poverty into ongoing prosperity:
* Nova Kibbutz and consultancy on rural communities' models.
* Local & National programs related to agro-produce export models - Dream Valley global vertical value and supply chain business model and concept connects (a) input suppliers with farmers in developing economies and (b) those farmers with consumers in premium markets.
* Crop protection: Biofeed, an eco-friendly zero-spray control technology and protocol.
*This article addresses general phenomena. The mention of a country/continent is used for illustration purposes only.
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