Agriculture: the First Step

Abstract

If any dent is to be made in the world’s poverty during the next quarter-century, it is in agriculture and the rural areas that the main changes must be made. The reasons are simple: that is where the vast majority of the poorest people live, probably as many as four-fifths of them; and that is where most of the extra food to feed the hungry must come from. Seen in retrospect, the concentration of most new countries since independence on their modern industry was an astonishing error in priorities. It was an attempt to move at one leap to the standards of living which the industrial countries had built up painfully over a couple of centuries. At best, it could only affect the living standards of a tiny fraction of their populations. But these people, of course, had most of the power and influence within the new societies. The silent majority of the rural areas were silent indeed.