Agricultural development, growth and equity : 40 years of experience

Agricultural development cannot be considered in isolation. It is more dependent on macroeconomic and other economy-wide policies than on specific intervention in the agricultural sector. Poverty in rural areas does not originate in the sector, but is the result of distorted signals throughout the economy. Where the signals are not distorted, agriculture has thrived and national income has been doubling every 10 years or so. There are no economic reasons why any developing country cannot achieve such results. The problems that have to be overcome are essentially ideological and political, not economic. Policies that hold reserve armies of cheap, unskilled labor in the countryside will lead to stagnation and hardship that no amount of grass-roots support can relieve. Development assistance should be moving strongly toward investment in infrastructure. To stimulate agricultural development, infrastructure has to be complemented by technological development on an international, bilateral and particularly, on a national scale.