Foundations for Agrarian Development

The paper briefly summarizes the recent record and future needs for agricultural production in CENTO countries. It then examines recent agricultural growth patterns in selected countries with respect to eight factors that seem to be highly important to agricultural development. These include four conditioning factors relating to land tenure, the price of farm products, availability of markets, and supply of consumer goods and four production factors including informational services, supplies of production requisites, credit facilities, and investments in development of land resources, particularly irrigation and land reclamation. Recent development patterns in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Greece and Mexico, countries with good records in increasing agricultural production, reveals that all eight factors have been highly or moderately favorable in recent years. In contrast, the record in three less successful countries, Chile, Spain, and India, reveals that until very recently most of these factors have been unfavorable and the others only moderately favorable. Governments of developing countries have a major role in creating conditions favorable to development, including establishment of the administrative machinery and staff needed to implement agricultural progress.