As an economy develops, agriculture faces distinctly different problems: food insecurity, sectoral income inequality, and food trade deficits associated with declining comparative advantage. Fear of widespread famine was Asia's major agricultural problem in the 1960s, which was subsequently...

Food security is not a viable social objective unless it is also a profitable undertaking for input suppliers, farmers, and marketers of output. Consumers must then be able to afford to purchase food, secure in the knowledge that it is safe and nutritious (Reardon and Timmer 2007). Achieving food...

Population growth, accelerated urbanization, and higher incomes are expected to increase food demand by about 70 percent by 2050—involving 1 billion extra tons of cereals and 200 million extra tons of meat (FAO 2009a). The region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia includes major food producing...

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by small farmers in Asia and the Pacific region in raising agricultural productivity and in diversifying into high-value commodities. About 87 percent of the world's 500 million small farms (less than 2 hectares) are in this region,...

This paper attempts to look at the dynamics and perhaps the complexities of agro-food marketing in Asia. It is based on my observations and readings on the topic. As such, it is not strictly a scientific paper. It ends with my impressions on the potentials of agro-food marketing and some possible...

Lao PDR and Cambodia have been transitioning to a market-oriented policy regime. Both are agrarian economies with agriculture contributing about one-third of the gross domestic product (GDP). This study assessed their prospects of achieving the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG 1, extreme...