Cover -- Title Page -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations and Data Notes -- Abbreviations -- Data notes -- Overview -- Introduction -- What can agriculture do for development? -- Agriculture has features that make it a unique instrument for development -- Agriculture contributes to development in many ways -- Agriculture's contributions differ in the three rural worlds -- Heterogeneity defines the rural world -- Agriculture has a strong record in development -- Agriculture has special powers in reducing poverty -- Agriculture can be the lead sector for overall growth in the agriculture-based countries -- Yet agriculture has been vastly underused for development -- New opportunities are emerging -- What are effective instruments in using agriculture for development? -- Increase access to assets -- Land -- Water -- Education -- Health -- Make smallholder farming more productive and sustainable -- Improve price incentives and increase the quality and quantity of public investment -- Make product and input markets work better -- Food staples markets -- Traditional bulk exports -- High-value markets -- Input markets -- Improve access to financial services and reduce exposure to uninsured risks -- Rural finance -- Managing risk -- Enhance the performance of producer organizations -- Promote innovation through science and technology -- Make agriculture more sustainable-and a provider of environmental services -- The urgency of dealing with climate change -- Biofuels-an opportunity and a challenge -- Moving beyond farming: a dynamic rural economy and skills to participate in it -- Creating rural employment -- Providing safety nets -- How can agriculture-for-development agendas best be implemented? -- Defining an agriculture-for-development agenda -- Opening and widening pathways out of poverty.

Agriculture-based countries: achieving growth and food security -- Transforming countries: reducing rural-urban income disparities and rural poverty -- Urbanized countries: linking smallholders to modern food markets and providing good jobs -- Implementing an agriculture-for-development agenda -- The future offers more promise for agriculture for development -- New roles for the state -- Strengthening civil society and democracy -- A mix of centralized and decentralized services -- Improving donor effectiveness -- Reforming global institutions -- What now? Toward implementation -- Notes -- PART 1 What can agriculture do for development? -- CHAPTER 1 Growth and poverty reduction in agriculture's three worlds -- Introduction -- The structural transformation -- Agriculture's essential but declining contribution to growth as countries develop -- Agriculture's power for poverty reduction -- The three worlds of agriculture for development -- Agriculture-based countries -- The nontradable staple crop sector -- The tradable agricultural sector -- Links with sectors outside of agriculture -- Agriculture as an engine for growth early on -- What history shows -- Transforming countries -- Managing the rural-urban divide -- Reducing rural poverty through the new agriculture and nonfarm employment -- Nonfarm employment -- Urbanized countries -- Agriculture: a good business with poverty-reducing potential -- Agriculture's development potential shortchanged -- Is the agricultural sector less productive? -- Are macroeconomic, price, and trade policies discriminating against agriculture? -- Is public spending biased toward urban needs? -- Development assistance to agriculture declined dramatically -- The political economy of agricultural policy -- The process of agricultural policy making -- State objectives and policymaking -- Collective action and policymaking.

Why use inefficient policy instruments? -- A new role for agriculture in development -- Notes -- focus A. Declining rural poverty has been a key factor in aggregate poverty reduction -- The rural-urban income divide is large and rising in most transforming economies -- Why the poverty decline in rural areas-rural development or migration? -- Rural areas contribute to a large share of the decline in national poverty -- Within-country heterogeneity: less favored areas and poverty -- Notes -- CHAPTER 2 Agriculture's performance, diversity, and uncertainties -- Introduction -- Productivity growth in developing countries drove agriculture's global success -- Developing countries have led agricultural growth -- Better technology and better policy have been major sources of growth -- Growth across regions and countries has been uneven -- Differences in performance reflect different underlying conditions -- Both agroecological conditions and market access matter -- Defining less-favored areas -- Opportunities for a new agriculture through diversification -- The horticulture revolution -- The livestock and aquaculture revolutions -- Diversifying through export markets -- Biofuels-a revolution in the making? -- Future perspectives: confronting challenges and rising uncertainties -- A "business as usual" scenario -- Looming land constraints -- Acute water scarcity -- Uncertain effects of climate change -- High energy prices: pressure on food prices from two sides -- Will science deliver? -- The bottom line: a more uncertain future? -- A growing divide among regions? -- Conclusion-a continuing production challenge -- Notes -- focus B. Biofuels: the promise and the risks -- Biofuels could become big markets for agriculture-with risks -- Economic viability of biofuels and the impact on food prices -- Nonmarket, context-specific benefits need to be evaluated.

Potential to enhance energy security -- Potential environmental impacts -- Benefits to smallholders -- Defining public policies for biofuels -- Notes -- CHAPTER 3 Rural households and their pathways out of poverty -- Introduction -- Three complementary pathways out of rural poverty: farming, labor, and migration -- Pathways often enhance each other -- The variation in rural households' income strategies -- A typology of rural households -- Heterogeneity of the household strategies -- Rural occupations and income sources -- Agriculture: a major occupation for rural households, especially for the poor -- Income diversification and specialization in wage employment and nonagricultural self-employment -- Exiting, coping, and acquiring capital through migration -- Household behavior when markets and governments fail: rational, despite appearances -- Mutual influence of household strategies and social norms -- Rural household asset positions: often low and unequal -- Human capital endowments -- Land pressures and the persistence of bimodal land distributions affect household landholdings -- Livestock: a key asset for the poorest, particularly in arid and semiarid settings -- Differential access to formal and informal social capital -- Pervasive risks and costly responses -- Lack of insurance and asset depletion -- Smallholder challenges to compete -- Smallholder entrepreneurs and cooperation -- Conclusions -- Notes -- focus C. What are the links between agricultural production and food security? -- Secure world, insecure households -- Food availability-producing enough to eat -- Food access-having enough to eat -- Food use-ending hidden hunger -- Notes -- PART 2 What are effective instruments for using agriculture for development? -- CHAPTER 4 Reforming trade, price, and subsidy policies -- Introduction.

Agricultural protection and subsidies in developed countries -- Reform progress is slow, with little change in overall support -- Political economy factors matter for further reform -- Agricultural taxation in developing countries -- Agriculture-based countries are taxing agriculture less -- Transforming and urbanized countries are protecting agriculture more -- Still space for further efficiency gains -- Political economy factors matter for further reform -- Simulated gains from trade liberalization -- The costs to developing countries of current trade policies are substantial -- Large price increases expected for some commodities from trade reforms: a gain for exporters, a loss for importers -- Faster agricultural output growth in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa -- Poverty declines in many countries, but not in all -- Gainers and losers among the poor within countries -- Scope for achieving potential gains -- Multilateral agreements: the Doha Round -- A Doha Round agreement-content matters -- Scenarios in the absence of an agreement -- Regional trade agreements -- Transitional support -- Arguments for and against protection of food staples in developing countries -- OECD policies -- Food security -- Safeguard policies -- Transitioning to alternative forms of taxation -- Policies and public spending to support transitions -- Public investment for long-term development -- Inefficiency of current spending -- Reforms to improve the efficiency of rural public spending -- Conclusions -- Notes -- CHAPTER 5 Bringing agriculture to the market -- Introduction -- Food staples: improving commodity trading and risk management -- Poor road connections -- Market information systems -- Commodity exchanges: fast and low cost -- Price-risk management: a role for governments? -- Traditional bulk export commodities: maintaining international competitiveness.

Different paths to liberalizing domestic markets.