Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction: Why the Relationship Is Not As Strong As We Think

This presentation reviews recent evidence on the relationship between agricultural growth and poverty reduction. It concludes that while agricultural growth has the potential to be an effective driver of rural poverty reduction, this is not always the case. Reduction in rural poverty rates depend on how the agricultural growth occurs. Namely,

• policies and programs targeted on the largest farms are likely to produce very concentrated benefits and lose opportunities to reduce poverty.
• Policies and programs targeted to the middle and poor strata of farmers must be done very carefully- some approaches are ill-advised, but others are likely to be effective.