Are the neglect of agriculture and land concentration responsible for increasing poverty and slow economic growth in developing countries?

The aim of my Feldafing lecture is to explore the causes of persistent poverty in rural areas of developing countries. For this purpose, I suggest that we examine how domestic policy on land tenure, pricing and the allocation of public expenditure/investment to agriculture have perpetuated, reduced or even generated rural poverty. As each country has adopted a mix of development strategies, it is difficult to single out the policy instrument behind rural poverty change. Policy questions of who benefits and who loses are central to understanding

the political economy of each country which could be judged from both the declared development objectives and quantitative results. Important among the indicators are the changes in: the degree of inequality in land distribution; agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) per head of the labour force in agriculture; food production per head of the total population; public investment in agriculture related to its share in national income; and available estimates of rural poverty incidence. Before examining these points, I wish to stress that the use of agricultural labour-force productivity and agricultural investment or public expenditure per capita is more meaningful than the limited use of economic growth rates only. Giving examples of country-specific situations will be helpful because all the above indicators are mathematical averages. The data are presented in tables.