IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sag/seajad/v5y2008i1p1-27.html

Agriculture and Pro-Poor Growth: An Asian Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • C. Peter Timmer

    (Thomas D. Cabot Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, Harvard University, USA)

Abstract

Imagine a region of the world where all food and agricultural products are sourced from international markets, and domestic agricultural sectors have disappeared. This "world without agriculture" is not imaginary. For many of the world's poorest countries, especially in Africa, a future without agriculture is increasingly being urged as the efficient path to development. Mark Rosenzweig, the new Director of Harvard's Center for International Development, asks at the broadest level: "Should Africa do any agriculture at all?" (Harvard Magazine, 2004, p. 57). Adrian Wood, Chief Economist for the Department for International Development (DfID) of the United Kingdom, envisions a "hollowed out" Africa, with most of the population on the coasts where they could more effectively produce manufactured exports (Wood 2002). Many macro economists, convinced of the power of rapid economic growth to lift populations out of poverty, see resources devoted to slow-growing agriculture as wasted. In a world of ample food supplies in world markets (some of it free as food aid) and increasingly open borders for trade, what is the role of agriculture in pro-poor growth?

Suggested Citation

  • C. Peter Timmer, 2008. "Agriculture and Pro-Poor Growth: An Asian Perspective," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-27, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sag:seajad:v:5:y:2008:i:1:p:1-27
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ajad.searca.org/article?p=54
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q1 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sag:seajad:v:5:y:2008:i:1:p:1-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Leah Lyn Domingo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/searcph.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.