ABSTRACT
The most direct way to reduce poverty is to raise the productivity of those factors of production controlled by the poor: first of all, their labor, but also their knowledge and skills, and for many though not all, small areas of land. Increased factor productivity of land, labor, capital and water can have second-order benefits for the poor, urban as well as rural, by lowering the price of food and other things on which the poor spend most of their meager incomes. Current strategies for agricultural development have relied on the genetic improvement of crops (and livestock), on mechanisation to reduce labor input and expand the scale of production units, and on greater use of inputs, chemical fertilisers, agrochemical biocides, and water. These practices have been faulted for being inaccessible to many smaller farmers and for offering little to those who own no land. However, they have had some large and favorable impacts for many of the poor over and above their generation of some additional employment on- and off-farm. Since 1960, there has been about a 30 per cent increase in per capita food production worldwide; the real price of food has declined by almost half (Halweil, 2002). Such a decline may have affected adversely some small farmers whose gains in productivity were less than others’, but overall, this technological change has improved the nutritional and income positions of the poor in comparison to counter-factual alternatives.
