Book chapter

Uganda’s significant economic growth over the last twenty years seemed to create favorable conditions for increased agricultural productivity, but agricultural productivity has failed to increase concordantly. As a result, most increases in aggregate crop production have been achieved from the expansion of cultivated land rather than increased investment in production technologies to raise crop yields per unit area of land. As access to land is increasingly constrained by high population growth, further expansion of cultivated land will be unsustainable.

The distributional benefits of commercialization of agriculture, access to commercialization opportunities, and sharing of commercialization risks are functions of institutional arrangements. Obviously, the indirect food security and nutritional effects are, thereby, partly a function of such institutional arrangements. This chapter explores the relevance to food security of one form of contractual relationship in agriculture: formal contracts between producers and buyers (generally processors or exporters), a production and marketing system known as contract farming.

In addition to global developments and food policy changes, 2014 also saw important developments with potentially wide repercussions in individual countries and regions. This chapter offers perspectives on major food policy developments in various regions including Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Book chapter

To promote development, there is increasing need for activities and policies which generate and diversify income in rural areas. The starch industry in Viet Nam provides a good example of rural industrialization whereby low-value agricultural commodities such as cassava and canna are processed into high-value commodities such as starch to be used in a variety of food and non-food industries. Though this sector is relatively small, it has a high potential in terms of demand growth, poverty reduction, and income diversification in rural areas, particularly the less favored ones.

Book chapter

This annual trends report for agricultural and rural development indicators is a monitoring and evaluation tool. It can be used to facilitate critical assessment of the progress being made in implementing and achieving the goals of Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) and other national developmental goals. CAADP aims at helping African countries to achieve high economic growth through agriculture-led development. The agricultural sector in Kenya contributes significantly to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment.

This paper examines how a changing climate may affect rice production and how Vietnamese farmers are likely to adapt to various climatic conditions using an innovative yield function approach, taking into account sample selection bias and endogeneity of inputs. Model results suggest that although climate change can potentially reduce rice production, farmers will respond mainly by adjusting the production portfolio and levels of input use.

Agriculture is an inherently risky economic activity. A large array of uncontrollable elements can affect output production and prices, resulting in highly variable economic returns to farm households. In developing countries, farmers also lack access to both modern instruments of risk management—such as agricultural insurance, futures contracts, or guarantee funds—and ex post emergency government assistance. Such farmers rely on different “traditional” coping strategies and risk-mitigation techniques, but most of these are inefficient.

CONTENTS: Introduction; Emphasizing agriculture in economic development -- is it a risky business? / John W.