Food security in Asia and the Pacific presents a frustrating paradox. At one level, huge progress has been made in the past half century in bringing most of the population out of poverty and hunger. Measured by the key determinants of food security—improved availability, access, utilisation...

A powerful historical pathway of structural transformation is experienced by all successful developing countries, and this Working Paper presents the results of new empirical analysis of the process. Making sure the poor are connected to both the structural transformation and to the policy...

In lieu of abstract (Introduction)--Imagine a region of the world where all food and agricultural products are sourced from international markets, and domestic agricultural sectors have disappeared. This "world without agriculture" is not imaginary. For many of the world's poorest countries,...

There is great interest among policy makers in how to influence the behavior of supermarkets in ways that serve the interests of important groups in society, especially small farmers and the owners of traditional, small-scale food wholesale and retail facilities. Two broader issues are also...

“Pro-poor growth” is the new mantra of the development community. Most donor agencies have active research programs underway to understand the pro-poor process, and the World Bank, with British, French and German bilateral support, is already studying how to operationalize the concept...

In the long run-- over the past four decades--improvements in food security in Indonesia have generally been driven by pro-poor economic growth and a successful Green Revolution, led by high-yielding rice varieties, massive investments in rural infrastructure, including irrigation, and ready...

No country has been able to sustain a rapid transition out of poverty without raising productivity in its agricultural sector. Despite this historical role of agriculture in economic development, both the academic and donor communities lost interest in the sector, starting in the mid-1980s. This...