ABSTRACT
It is noteworthy that only five of the 34 countries allocated a major portion of their land to grow food crops. The five countries included advanced-economy, emerging-economy as well as growing-economy countries (Bangladesh, China, India, Nigeria and the UK) (Table 6.1). One-third of the countries included in our list use half of their total land area to grow crops. Despite these differences in the amount of land allocated to food production, there is no relationship between the HDI ranking of a country and its allocation of land to agriculture. This noticeable lack of relationship highlights the greater importance of soil characteristics and climates in determining whether or not it is realistic for a country to invest in local agricultural production (see Chapters 7 and 8).
