CONTENTS: Brief 1. Overview / John Pender and Peter Hazell Brief 2. Technologies for the East African Highlands / Frank Place Brief 3. Technologies for the tropical Andes / Tom Walker et al. Brief 4. Technologies for the Southeast Asian Uplands / Sushil Pandey Brief 5. Returns to public...

Drought is a recurrent and often devastating threat to the welfare of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where three-quarters of the arable land has less than 400 mm of annual rainfall, and the natural grazings, which support a majority of the 290 million ruminant livestock,...

Developing countries have to allocate limited government resources for rural areas among different investment activities and regions to achieve the twin goals of productivity growth and poverty alleviation. This is particularly important at a time when many countries are facing severe financial...

Current trends in demography, agricultural production and rural environment in the developing countries suggest that so-called "marginal lands" must play a larger and probably growing role in food supply and economic development for the foreseeable future. To fulfill this critical role, public...

Natural disasters can be extremely disruptive to farmers and to others whose incomes depend on a successful crop. Society can gain from more efficient sharing of crop and natural disaster risks. However, the costs associated with traditional agricultural risk programs have historically exceeded...

Using time series data, this paper analyses the relative contributions of terms of trade and non-price variables in explaining agricultural growth in recent decades in India. Agricultural growth is largely explained by expansion of irrigation, (which in the model is also a proxy for HYVs and...

"The rural nonfarm economy (RNFE) accounts for roughly 25 percent of full-time rural employment and 35-40 percent of rural incomes across the developing world. This diverse collection of seasonal trading, household-based and large-scale agroprocessing, manufacturing and service activities plays...

Poverty in rural India has declined substantially in recent decades. This steady decline in poverty was strongly associated with agricultural growth, particularly the green revolution, which in turn was a response to massive public investments in agriculture and rural infrastructure. Public...