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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
How can the U.S. support growth in developing countries
>> Foreign Aid in the National Interest >> >> Chapter 2 Jump to Chapter 2 Sections:
>> New thinking on drivers of growth >> Income inequality is declining >> More trade and investment mean faster growth >> Increasing U.S. imports through the African Growth and Opportunity Act >> A microeconomic agenda for development >> How can the U.S. support growth in developing countries >> Background papers >> References
Getting agriculture moving
Requirements for agricultural development have been understood for several decades. Adequate agricultural technology and sufficient prices for what farmers produce lead to farm investments and income streams that increase commodity output and reduce rural poverty. Educating rural inhabitants speeds up the process, as does assistance in developing new agricultural technology.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s agriculture has long suffered from inadequate technology and insufficient prices in rural markets. Asia has had limited success in linking the rural nontradable sector to urban markets and to labor-intensive export growth. In Latin America many poor rural residents have migrated to urban areas, which now contain two-thirds of the region’s population. But Central America and Mexico still suffer from severe and persistent rural poverty, and strategies are needed to reduce it.
Mechanisms for developing agricultural technology and providing rural price incentives have weakened since the 1960s. The system supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has an impressive record of increasing crop yields for many of the world’s staple foods. But funding for the system has been threatened as market prices for these crops have dropped to historic lows, reflecting productivity gains in developing countries and government-subsidized crop surpluses in industrial countries. Few developing countries have the scientific resources to conduct basic crop research, so where will agricultural technology come from to provide food for the additional 3 billion people expected in the next 50 years?
Biotechnology holds out great promise it is largely a product of scientific enterprise, public and private, in industrial countries. Pest resistance and drought tolerance are being integrated already into crops of great importance to poor farmers cotton, maize, and sweet potatoes. The science may be complex, but once the new varieties are developed and appropriate food safety and environmental risk analyses have been completed, their incorporation into both farming and food systems can be relatively swift. Farmers and consumers in the United States, Argentina, China, and South Africa are already beginning to realize the results of this evolution in agricultural science. With fewer pesticides to apply, production costs drop. With more resistance to pests and drought, harvests are greater.
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Last Updated on: October 07, 2009 |
