ABSTRACT
Our review above of government strategies and resource allocations for rural development indicate a bias towards the more favoured areas: the irrigated lowland areas of India, Nepal and the Philippines, and the central lowlands of Thailand. Government clearly has a comparative advantage in developing and transferring agricultural technology for these: farmers’ conditions can easily be replicated on experimental stations and improvement in a single input (e.g. in a variety of rice or wheat) when complemented by agrochemicals, reliable water supply and efficient marketing, can easily have wide impact. Furthermore, government institutes’ close contact with international research centres can be instrumental in importing techniques and information conducive to the major advances characteristic of the Green Revolution. Also, governments have prioritized these areas deliberately for a number of reasons: in many countries they contain the most articulate and politically powerful farmers, and often generate food surpluses for politically important urban electorates.
