But supermarkets need uniform quality, minimum large quantities and high standards of hygiene, which the average smallholder in a poor country is ill equipped to provide.
While the practice carries serious health risks for many, those dangers are outweighed by the social and economic gains for poor urban farmers and consumers who need affordable food.
Feelings of hopelessness among medieval workers trapped in the poverty cycle gradually lessened as it became possible for women's labor to supplement a family's money income by more than pennies.
Families in poor countries are much more likely than in the West to spend their savings looking after a chronically ill relative, or to pull children out of school to act as nursemaids.