Publisher Description

Agricultural trade has always been one of the most sensitive international trade issues. Governments around the world have long been reluctant to abandon policy instruments that give them influence over domestic prices and allow them to raise revenues. This study looks briefly at the agriculture and trade policies of six different developing countries, each of which has enjoyed unusually high rates of economic growth and development: South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Chile, and Botswana. Their experience may shed further light on the extent to which governments should retain their powers to intervene in trade as opposed to relinquishing them in favour of market liberalisation.

After nearly two centuries of lagging behind the industrial countries, growth in many developing countries has surged since the early 1990s. This outperformance has major implications for almost all areas of agricultural economics and, if continued, will likely do so into the future. This paper aims to identify the key ways in which the changes in rich and poor country growth rates matter for agricultural economists, as a basis for formulating better research agendas. A key impact arises through sharp increases in demand for agricultural resources as demand for livestock products increases. This changing structure of food demand has important implications for nutrition studies and policies, with the emergence of a double burden of malnutrition. On the supply side, growth in developing countries tends to increase domestic food supply, which is also boosted by increases in research and development spending. Growth in developing countries both stimulates and benefits from increases in infrastructure investment, evaluation of which requires new analytical tools discussed at this conference. Negative impacts include the contribution of increased demand for livestock products to global greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of trade policy, developing country growth is tending to lead to convergence of agricultural policies with the pattern of assistance seen in today’s developed countries, raising concerns about the future need to deal with collective action problems, particularly those that increase the volatility of world prices.

The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.