The distributional effects of trade policies involving food are always controversial, particularly in countries for which staple foods are net imports. Indonesia is the world’s largest importer of its staple food, rice, and this commodity simultaneously accounts, in its consumption, for a...

Newly available evidence confirms that expansion of aggregate food supplies within developing countries themselves is strongly associated with reduced undernourishment. It is not sufficient to rely solely on aggregate economic growth or reductions in poverty incidence to deliver improved food...

Despite efforts by the Chinese government to reduce rural poverty in recent decades, the extent of poverty in many mountainous areas of rural China is still high. To survive, rural residents in these areas are often forced to over-exploit the already stretched natural resources; the end result...

The paper examines poverty in urban Ethiopia using household survey data for 1994 and 2000. Consumption poverty is found to be high, with an overall head count of 47 per cent, in 1994, and 40 per cent, in 2000. As monetary measures may not appropriately capture welfare in non-monetary dimensions...

Transaction costs and poor asset endowments appear to be major impediments to small scale agricultural development in Uganda. Reasons for the lack of commercialisation of agriculture, and the barriers to increasing the value of banana crop sales and banana production are the focus of this paper....

The results of a three-year study of the implications of China's accession to the WTO for its agricultural sector and policy options to maximise the benefits of the trade reforms are reported. The most important message from the study is that macro-economic and other non-agriculture specific...

Improving smallholder welfare in the rural sectors of developing countries requires improving access to both input and product markets. Success, however, in developing sustainable and mutually beneficial links between smallholders and agribusiness has been variable. Two recent ACIAR studies...

The relationship between poverty incidence and road development is analyzed in this paper, in the context of rural Laos. The results indicate that improving road access is an effective way of reducing rural poverty. Between 1997-98 and 2002-03, rural poverty incidence in Laos declined by almost...

The incomes of people in Fiji who rely directly on agricultural production are under threat due to a number of institutional changes or shocks that are occurring now, or are expected in the near future. In this paper we examine recent evidence on the current nature and level of rural and urban...