World Bank Report Puts Agriculture at Core of Antipoverty Effort

For the first time in a quarter century, the World Bank's flagship annual report on development puts agriculture and the productivity of small farmers at the heart of a global agenda to reduce poverty. Three-quarters of the world's poor still live in the countryside.

The World Development Report, released yesterday, is the first on agriculture since 1982. Just a week ago, an internal evaluation unit chided the bank for its neglect of agriculture in Africa and its plummeting financial support for that sector over the past 15 years — support that did not begin to grow significantly until last year.

More broadly, the report crystallizes an emerging consensus among wealthy countries, philanthropists and African governments: Increased public investment in scientific research, rural roads, irrigation, credit, fertilizer and seeds — the basics of an agricultural economy — is crucial to helping Africa's poor farmers grow more sorghum, corn, millet, cassava and rice on their miniature plots.

Foreign aid for agriculture has plunged as support for global health and primary education has surged. The fight against AIDS and other diseases is keeping millions of people alive, and rising elementary school attendance is lifting literacy rates. But most poor Africans make their living in agriculture and need to grow more to feed themselves and earn their way out of destitution, many analysts say.