History teaches us that agricultural growth and development is necessary for achieving overall better living conditions in all societies. Although this process may seem homogenous when looked at from the outside, it is full of diversity within. This book captures this diversity by presenting eleven independent case studies ranging over time and space. By comparing outcomes, attempts are made to draw general conclusion and lessons about the agricultural transformation process.

Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World is the first comprehensive exploration of key emerging issues facing developing-country agriculture today, from rapid urbanization to rural transformation to climate change. In this four-part volume, top experts offer the latest research in the field of agricultural development. Using new lenses to examine today’s biggest challenges, contributors address topics such as nutrition and health, gender and household decision-making, agrifood value chains, natural resource management, and political economy. The book also covers most developing regions, providing a critical global perspective at a time when many pressing challenges extend beyond national borders. Tying all this together, Agricultural Development explores policy options and strategies for developing sustainable agriculture and reducing food insecurity and malnutrition. The changing global landscape combined with new and better data, technologies, and understanding means that agriculture can and must contribute to a wider range of development outcomes than ever before, including reducing poverty, ensuring adequate nutrition, creating strong food value chains, improving environmental sustainability, and promoting gender equity and equality. Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World, with its unprecedented breadth and scope, will be an indispensable resource for the next generation of policymakers, researchers, and students dedicated to improving agriculture for global wellbeing.

Perspectives on Agricultural Transformation - A View From Africa

This monograph, A World without Agriculture, was the 2007 Henry Wendt Lecture, delivered at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 2007. The Wendt Lecture is delivered annually by a scholar who has made major contributions to our understanding of the modern phenomenon of globalization and its consequences for social welfare, government policy, and the expansion of liberal political institutions.

Research paper, agricultural development, role in economic development, structural change in the agricultural sector - theoretical aspects, decision making, agricultural production production factors, farm households, agricultural technology issues, agricultural policies for speeding up modernization, etc. Graph, references, tables.

In a time of great agricultural and rural change, the notion of 'multifunctionality' has remained under-theorized and poorly linked to the debates in the social sciences. This book analyses the extent to which the proposed transition towards post-productivist agriculture holds up to scientific scrutiny, and proposes a new transition theory.

This book provides a thorough introduction to and examination of agricultural value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, the authors introduce the economic theory of agri-food value chains and value chain governance, focusing on domestic and regional trade in (and consumption of) food crops in a low-income country context. In addition to mainstream and heterodox thinking about value chain development, the book pays attention to political economy considerations. The book also reviews the empirical evidence on value chain development and performance in Africa. It adopts multiple lenses to examine agricultural value chains, zooming out from the micro level (e.g., relational contracting in a context of market imperfections) to the meso level (e.g., distributional implications of various value chain interventions, inclusion of specific social groups) and the macro level (underlying income, population and urbanization trends, volumes and prices, etc.).Furthermore, this book places value chain development in the context of a process the authors refer to as structural transformation 2.0, which refers to a process where production factors (labor, land and capital) move from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity agriculture. Finally, throughout the book the authors interpret the evidence in light of three important debates: (i) how competitive are rural factor and product markets, and what does this imply for distribution and innovation? (ii) what role do foreign investment and factor proportions play in the development of agri-food value chains in Africa? (iii) what complementary government policies can help facilitate a process of agricultural value chain transformation, towards high-productive activities and enhancing the capacity of value chains to generate employment opportunities and food security for a growing population.