Transforming Agriculture in Africa & Asia: What are the policy priorities?

Successfully eradicating poverty through agriculture depends on whether a country has enough agricultural land, how fertile it is, and the demographic pressures.

That is the key finding of new research by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). This report, Transforming Agriculture in Africa and Asia: What are the policy priorities? uses a first-of-its kind analytical framework that tracks the performance of 117 countries over 45 years to understand which policies have succeeded or failed.

Key findings:

• Agricultural transformation takes off when countries remove price policies that penalize agriculture.
• Public investment in research, extension services, electricity and irrigation are important, but the quality of those services can matter more than the quantity.
• Land reforms, research institutions and improving access to credit are also critical, but ultimately no country succeeds without a combination of policies and public investments that complement each other.