Agriculture And Equitable Growth

The prospects for equitable growth in African agriculture are good as long as governments monitor land rights, upgrade rural infrastructure, foster farm-nonfarm linkages, and focus agricultural research on crops and technologies important to smallholders.

This book aims to examine how the pattern of growth in the agricultural sectors has contributed to equitable growth and to assess the relevance of the relationship between agriculture and equitable growth in Punjab-Haryana for other states in India and for other low-income countries.

This report investigates the income and equity effects of macroeconomic policy reforms in Zimbabwe, emphasizing linkages between macroeconomic policies and agricultural performance and agriculture's influence on aggregate income and its distribution. Analyses focus on reform of the foreign trade regime, public expenditure, and tax policy, along with the potential benefits of combining these structural changes with various land reform scenarios. The study uses a CGE model that provides a policy simulation laboratory in which exogenous policy changes are analyzed for their economywide income and equity effects.The report highlights the need for policy complementarities in Zimbabwe that can contribute to equitable growth. It should be of interest not only to those concerned with recent economic developments in Zimbabwe but also to those concerned with the broader issues of macroeconomic reform and its ultimate effects.

The Commission delivers a message of hope - but hope rooted in the realities of human resourcefulness and practical measures that citizens' groups, governments and international institutions could take up. It is a message we all should heed and act upon.

This report is a condensation of remarks by Kenneth R. Farrell, administrator, Economics, Statistics and Cooperation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, at the Festival on Religion and Rural life held in Indianapolis, Indiana, July 31 - August 3, 1978.