ABSTRACT
The means, motivators and markets for agricultural production are, for the most part, town-based. There is a renewed concern with development of subnational regions, and particularly with rural regional development, among developing countries and donor agencies. In many of these, after a period of designating development regions, setting up regional development authorities and launching regional development programs in the later 1960s and early 1970s, enthusiasm waned. The 3-M production system framework guides regional diagnosis toward a limited analysis of the region. The approach is to study in depth a few key components of the regional economy, namely the production system of dominant agricultural commodities or commodity groups. The purpose of regional analysis is to inform the design of the desirable development interventions. The 3-M framework focuses diagnosis, and therefore policy and project interventions, on rural regional dynamics, namely on the systemic relationships among things.
