Rice is the lifeline of almost 70% of the world's poor residing in Asia, where more than 90% of world rice production and consumption takes place. Rice trade liberalization therefore has tremendous implications for poverty. The world rice market is highly distorted, partly because of the high...

"Financing for water projects, especially for irrigation, has been moving towards collapse in recent years due to declining donor and government funding. Some Indian states have undertaken innovative institutional reforms by setting up financially autonomous corporations to mobilise required...

A major question that has surfaced in the changing context of world agriculture is whether the smallholders would ride the wave of globalization or be swept away. This paper addresses the debate with a four-fold objective: (1) it maps different factors that are likely to impinge on developing...

The South Asian countries are gradually diversifying with some inter-country variation in favor of high value commodities, namely fruits, vegetables, livestock and fisheries. Agricultural diversification is strongly influenced by price policy, infrastructure development (especially markets and...

This paper combines household survey and census data to construct a provincial poverty map of Vietnam and evaluate the accuracy of geographically targeted anti-poverty programs. First, the paper estimates per capita expenditure as a function of selected household and geographic characteristics...

To meet its overall objective of ensuring food security for all households, the Government of Bangladesh undertakes several activities: it intervenes in markets to stabilize prices, targets food distribution to poor households and provides emergency relief after natural disasters. This paper...

Spatially disaggregated maps of the incidence of poverty can be constructed by combining household survey data and census data. In some cases, however, statistical authorities are reluctant, for reasons of confidentiality, to release household-level census data. This paper examines the loss in...

It has been long hypothesized that lack of access to credit is the main reason why, despite higher profitability of High Yielding Varieties (HYVs), farmers in developing countries continue to allocate a portion of their land to traditional crop varieties. The empirical testing of this hypothesis...

"This paper reports results of incorporating fish into IMPACT, a global model of food supply and demand that estimates market-clearing prices to 2020 for 32 commodities in 36 regions. It summarizes results for production, consumption, net exports and real price changes for 10 economic categories...

Using primary data from a survey of expert opinion, this paper identifies key successes emerging in African agriculture. Among these, major commodity-specific successes identified include breakthroughs in maize breeding across Africa, sustained gains in cassava breeding and successful combat of...