The World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development (Near-final version)

This report will examine several broad questions:

- How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture?
- Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa?
- How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction?
- How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas?
- How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture’s negative environmental effects be contained?

Owing to the great diversity in agricultural activities and in the biophysical and socioeconomic settings where agriculture is practiced, it is no simple task to determine which strategies or policies will work best in a given country. To illustrate the choices presented in different settings, this report presents a typology of countries that recognizes both the dynamics of aggregate economic growth and the importance of agriculture in the economy. The typology is then further refined to account for important differences in agricultural productivity potential and market access in given regions of a country, and differences among households in terms of access to assets within these regions. The report will use a people-centered definition of agriculture: agricultural households have at least one member engaged in an agricultural activity, either as a direct producer or worker. Agricultural activities include crops, livestock, agroforestry, and aquaculture (although not forests and fisheries more generally), as well as activities in the food, feed, and fiber system, spanning the range from input provision to agro-processing, retailing, agricultural extension and research systems.

The World Development Report 2008 is a collaborative effort of the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice Presidency and Sustainable Development Network. It is expected to be published in September 2007.