ABSTRACT
Most people in the developing world live in rural areas and are engaged, directly or indirectly, in some form of agriculture; and it is also in these rural areas that the greatest number of the poorest are to be found. As
Table 4.1 reveals, there is some variation in this pattern, with Latin America having a rather lower percentage of people living in rural areas compared with Asia and, more particularly, with Africa. And yet there is in the literature – and, indeed, in practical development planning policy – a tendency to accept these facts almost as ‘given’ and to focus attention on non-agricultural, non-rural and urban-industrial problems
of development. This ‘urban bias’, as it is termed, has characterised much writing and policy, both during and since the colonial period, and still exists in most developing countries.
