ABSTRACT
This chapter places agricultural evolution theory in the context of the debate about how to promote agricultural growth. It reviews the origins of the theory of agricultural evolution and describes its two chief threads. The first thread is the Boserup-Ruthenberg model of agricultural change in response to population growth and market access, which focused largely on tropical agriculture. Empirical tests of the Boserup-Ruthenberg model have been hampered by the scarcity of time-series data. The second thread is the production relations synthesis that sought to explain the "major features of production relations in rural areas". The chapter highlights differences among African countries, some countries in Latin America, and others in Asia, in terms of their effects on the success or failure of the theory. It discusses empirical work on their implications in three areas: The evolution of endogenous farm technology and its consequences; the persistence of the family farm; and Farmers' responses to external shocks.
