Agribusiness and Poverty Reduction: What Can be Learned from the Value Chain Approach?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted by the Millennium Summit of 2000 commit the international community to a strategy of accelerated poverty reduction. The proportion of people living under conditions of extreme poverty should be reduced by half by the year 2015 (MDG 1). The MDGs are today the most significant point of reference for international development policy, cooperation and research (see e.g. Fues and Loewe 2005). The commitment to MDG has led to intensified research on the question, which factors influence the poverty reducing effects of economic growth and to the search for growth patterns that have a more direct impact on poverty than mere ‘trickle down’ processes (Kakwani, Khandker and Son 2004).