The majority of farms in the developing world are small (less than 2 hectares) and they are home to the majority of the rural poor. Their future will have an important bearing on whether poverty and hunger can be halved by 2015. However, small farms are seriously challenged today in ways that...

World prices have traditionally been unstable, however, the authors'find thehe much publicized turbulence in world markets in the mid-1970's and early 1980's to have been more a statistical fluke - an unlucky chance sample - than the beginning of any longer term increase in market instability....