A Conceptual Framework for Studying Institutions in Watershed Development
Ahmedabad Gandhi, Vasant P. (2010)
The experience of a few watershed programmes in India point towards the need for better improved governance for watersheds to play an effective role in raising agricultural productivity and conserving natural resources.

African Poverty is Falling… Much Faster Than You Think!
Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Maxim Pinkovskiy (2010)
This paper impressively documents trends in poverty and inequality in Africa, where outcomes are more positive than many scholars and organizations claim.

Agricultural development in an emerging non-agrarian regional economy: Kerala's challenges, economic and political weekly
Kannan, K.P.  (2011)
The revival of agriculture in an increasingly diversifying economy like Kerala in India requires addressing issues like technology, organization and environment through the means of the functional planning process in the state.

Agricultural Innovation
Brian D. Wright and Tiffany M. Shih (2010)
This paper investigates recent developments and challenges in agricultural innovation.

Agricultural growth and poverty reduction in Tanzania 2000-2010: where has agriculture worked for the poor and what can we learn from this?
Oswald Mashindano, Kim Kayunze, Lucia da Corta, Festo Maro (2011)
High economic growth and moderate agricultural growth in Tanzania has not translated into poverty reduction. Based on evidence gathered from six research sites, the authors show that distortions in market, high rate of inflation, skewed distribution of assets are some factors that lie at the root of the mismatch between agricultural growth and stagnating or worsening living standards among a large section of the Tanzanian population.

Agricultural Growth and Investment Options for Poverty Reduction in Nigeria
Xinshen Diao, Manson Nwafor, Vida Alpuerto, Kamiljon Akramov, and Sheu Salau (2010)
This study examines the optimal agricultural development strategy in Nigeria, focusing on subsectors, spillovers, and state and national public policy targeting.

Agricultural trade reform and rural prosperity: lessons from China
Jikun Huang, Yu Liu, Will Martin, and Scott Rozelle (2008)
This study finds that market and trade liberalization were essential in increasing the incomes of China's rural farmers over 1981-2005

Agriculture, Roads, and Economic Development in Uganda
Douglas Gollin and Richard Rogerson (2010)
This study argues that the poor quality of transportation infrastructure in Uganda is one of the primary explanations for high population density in rural areas and the share of labor devoted to agriculture. 

Analyzing Pro-Poor Growth in Southern Africa: Lessons from Mauritius and South Africa
Jean-Yves Duclos and Audrey Verdier-Chouchane (2010)
This article compares and contrasts the growth trajectories of Mauritius and South Africa, two countries that have achieved impressive growth but which have achieved very different levels of success in poverty reduction. 

Are borders barriers? the impact of international and internal ethnic borders on agricultural markets in West Africa
Jenny C. Aker, Michael W. Klein, Stephen A. O'Connell, and Muzhe Yang (2010)
In a study of cross-border trade between Niger and Nigeria and domestic trade within Niger, Aker et al. find that ethnicity is a significant determinant of trade flows.

Ascending out of poverty: An analysis of family histories in Kenya
Robert Miller, Mary Mathenge, Kate Bird, Francis Z. Karin, Raphael Gitau and Esther Kaloi Nteza (2011)
Using minimally-structured interviews with several generations of Kenyan families, the paper finds that family-history interviews lead to a more nuanced understanding about the factors that support movement out of poverty and shows that ascent out of poverty is a process rather than something arising due to chains of discrete events.

Building Sustainable Small-Scale Agriculture in Southern Africa
International Finance Corporation (2010)
This report summarizes a recent conference that brought together representatives from agriculture, development organizations, and financial institutions to identify ways to improve productivity in African agriculture.

Climate Change, Agriculture, Food Security in Tanzania
Channing Arndt, Will Farmer, Ken Strzepek and James Thurlow (2011)
High regional diversity within Tanzania needs to be accounted for in any analysis of the impact of climate change on agriculture, food security and living standards.

Dev, Mahendra, S (2011)
This paper Focuses on small-scale agriculture and vulnerable population groups form effective climate change adaptive and mitigation strategies in the Asia-pacific region.

Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Productivity between Newly Resettled Farmers and Communal Farmers in Mashonaland East Province
Angeline Chamunorwa (2010)
Field study based comparison of performance of newly resettled famers with communal area farmers in Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe shows that to make the fast track land reform programme a success it is necessary to address issues related to availability of and access to inputs, prices for farm output and provision of extension services and security of tenure.

Demand growth in developing countries, OECD food, agriculture and fisheries
Abler, David (2010)
A critical review of studies on agricultural demand in BRIIC countries derives implications for markets and prices, finding that as wealth increases demand will grow for most food categories except cereals, consumption levels will become less susceptible to changes in income, and that prices of agricultural commodities will become less susceptible to the economic cycle but more susceptible to supply shocks.

Dial 'A' for Agriculture: A Review of Information and Communication Technologies for Agricultural Extension in Developing Countries
Jenny C. Aker (2011)
This paper makes the case for mobile phone based agricultural extension services.

Economic Liberalization and Indian Economic Growth: What's the Evidence?
Ashok Kotwal, Bharat Ramaswami, and Wilima Wadhwa (2010)
This article reviews India's economic development and reforms since the 1980s and concludes with arguments about what India must do next, including focusing on agricultural development to reduce poverty.

Economics and efficiency of organic farming vis-à-Vis conventional farming in India
Charyulu, D. Kumara and Subho Biswas (2010)
A comparison of the economics and efficiency of organic and conventional farming for four crops in India throws light on the nature of institutional support required to expand organic cultivation.

Effects of inclusive public agricultural extension service: results from a policy reform experiment in Western China
Ruifa Hu, Yaqing Cai, Kevin Z. Chen, Yongwei Cui, and Jikun Huang (2010)
This study of China's recent reform of its agricultural extension services finds that targeted policies improved availability for small farmers.

Effects of credit constraints on productivity and rural household income in China
Dong, Fengxia, Jing Lu, and Allen M. Featherstone (2010)
A study of credit constraints in rural China finds agricultural productivity and household income to improve by 31.6% and 23.2%, respectively, when constraints are lifted, suggesting that factors of production are underutilized when constraints remain.

Enhancing Food Security in an Era of Global Climate Change
William C. Clark, Patti Kristjanson, Bruce Campbell, Calestous Juma, Noel M. Holbrook, Gerald Nelson, and Nancy Dickson (2010)
The spectre of climate change casts a shadow over already pressing food sustainability issues. This report documents major themes to emerge in discussions on strategic approaches to food security and climate change at the recent Harvard-organized session in Venice bringing together over 25 experts on the issue.

Environmental and Gender Impacts of Land Tenure Regularization in Africa: Pilot Evidence from Rwanda
Daniel Ayalew Ali, Klaus Deininger, and Markus Goldstein (2011)
This study finds that a pilot program to regularize land tenure in Rwanda was very successful in increasing land-related investment and female ownership.

Escaping poverty in Tanzania: what can we learn from cases of success?
Kate Higgins (2011)
Analysis based on qualitative data set collected in six research sites in Tanzania, shows that while agriculture is a key factor in supporting upward mobility, it is non-farm businesses, the accumulation of physical assets, salaried employment and favourable marriage that are critical in helping people exit poverty.

Estimating the short-run poverty impacts of the 2010-11 surge in food prices
Maros Ivanic, Will Martin and Hassan Zaman (2011)
The paper assesses the poverty impact of food price changes between June and December 2010 in twenty-eight low and middle income countries. Detailed information was gathered on individual households' food production and consumption levels for thirty-eight agricultural and food commodities to assess the impacts on household welfare. The authors estimate that there was a net increase of 44 million people falling below the extreme poverty line during that period.

Evaluating India's national rural employment guarantee scheme: The case of Birbhum District
Subhasish Dey (2010)
A cross-sectional survey of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India builds an assessment of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in terms of outreach, efficiency in job provisioning and impact on standard of living.

Farm risk reduction assessment for Nusa Tenggara Islands, Indonesia
Roger Montgomery, Rohandi and Rilus Kinseng (2010)
A field assessment of smallholder farming in villages of Nusa Tenggara Islands in Indonesia reveals the various forms of cultivation risks that farmers face and explores the various formal and informal risk mitigation strategies that they adopt.

Finding missing markets (and a disturbing epilogue): evidence from an export crop adoption and marketing intervention in Kenya
Nava Ashraf, Xavier Giné, and Dean Karlan (2009)
This study examines a program that successfully assisted Kenyan smallholder farmers to export their crops, and then describes in an epilogue how the program collapsed and the farmers defaulted on their loans because their products did not satisfy European export requirements. The authors suggest that the risk of such events is one reason why seemingly profitable export strategies are not more frequently adopted.

Food Crisis, Household Welfare and HIV/AIDS Treatment: Evidence from Mozambique
Damien de Walque, Harounan Kazianga, Mead Over, and Julia Vaillant (2011)
The 2007-2008 global food price crisis had a significant negative impact on welfare in developing countries. There is reason to expect that it might affect HIV/AIDS infected individuals even more, since antriretroviral regimens require good nutrition. However, this study of HIV-positive households in Mozambique finds that they did not exhibit welfare decreases greater than HIV-negative households.

Food security and the EU's common agricultural policy: Facts against fears' european centre for international political economy
Zahrnt, Valentine (2011)
While concerns for food insecurity in EU that underlines the CAP are largely unfounded, enhanced agricultural research, conservation of the environment and support to developing country agriculture are more appropriate for fighting global hunger.

Food insecurity and public agricultural spending in Bolivia
Jose Cuesta, Svetlana Edmeades and Lucia Madrigal (2011)
The paper examines the reduction of food insecurity in Bolivia by adopting a supply side approach to analyze the role of agricultural spending on vulnerability. The paper indicates the importance of the content of public agricultural spending in determining the vulnerability to food insecurity.

Foreign aid to agriculture- review of facts and analysis
Nurul Islam (2011)
The paper attempts to provide an overview of the trends in aid to agriculture over time, within the framework of changes in the pattern of total development aid. It seeks to examine the factors relating to the agriculture sector and the priorities and allocation processes of the total aid.

Local Economic Development and Migrant Remittances in rural Zimbabwe: Building on sand or solid ground
Gracsious Ncube and Georgina Gomez (2011)
Apart from boosting consumption, remittances have also played a positive role in enhancing productive investment in the Tsholotsho district, Zimbabwe but the resulting enterprises are vulnerable in terms of skills and sustainability.

India's role in the new global farmland grab: an examination of the role of the Indian Government and Indian companies engaged in overseas agricultural land acquisitions in developing countries
Rick Rowden (2011)
In recent years developing countries such as China and India too have joined in the process of multinational agribusiness companies acquiring prime agricultural land in developing countries. This paper explores the role of Indian agricultural companies that have been involved in the recent trend of large-scale overseas acquisitions of farmland.

Inequality, Human Capital Formation and the Process of Development
Oded Galor (2011)
This paper reviews a recently popular thesis in development economics that income distribution has an important impact on human capital formation and the development process.

Intercommodity price transmission and food price policies – an analysis of Ethiopian cereal markets
Shahidur Rashid (2011)
The paper examines the intercommodity price relationships to evaluate which of the major cereal crops are important in contributing to price volatility in Ethiopia. The paper concludes that maize is the most significant contributor to price volatility.

Is there surplus labour in rural India?
Foster, Andrew D., and Mark R. Rosenzweig (2010)
An empirical study of agricultural production in India relates inefficiency to small farm size, finding larger farms to be less credit constrained, better mechanized, less susceptible to income shocks, and requiring less labour per acre cultivated.

Maize is life, but rice is money! A village case study of the 2001/02 famine in Malawi
Tiba, Zoltán (2011)
The lack of timely intervention by ADMARC in the food markets, when maize prices were abnormally surging, was more the cause for the Malawi famine in 2002 than any sharp decline in production.

Measures of fixed capital in agriculture
Policy research working paper 5472, agriculture and rural development team, development research group, the World Bank ,Washington, DC, Butzer, Rita, Yair Mundlak, and Donald F. Larsen. 2010
A new dataset for capital stock which distinguishes between livestock, treestock, and fixed capital, highlights the changing composition of capital stock and finds that fixed capital accounts for most of the change in agricultural productivity.

Measuring the effect of transaction costs for investment in irrigation pumps: application of unobserved stochastic threshold model to the case of Nigeria
Takeshima, Hiroyuki, Adetola I. Adeoti and Sheu Salau (2010)
A study of small-scale private irrigation schemes in Nigeria finds that unobserved transaction costs are sufficiently high to discourage investment, particularly among female farmers, the landless, and farmers located furthest from markets, suggesting that policies to lower transaction costs are as effective in encouraging investment as is raising profitability.

Micro-Level Practices to Adapt to Climate Change for African Small-Scale Farmers: A Review of Selected Literature
Till Below, Astrid Artner, Rosemarie Siebert, and Stefan Sieber (2010)
This review article discusses the potential agricultural impact of climate change in Africa and evaluates the literature concerning smallholder adaptation strategies.

Microinsurance, Trust and Economic Development: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Field Experiment
Hongbin Cai, Yuyu Chen, Hanming Fang, and Li-An Zhou (2009)
In the first study of a randomized microinsurance program, Cai et al. find that microinsurance provision significantly increased the number of sows raised by rural farmers in southwest China, and contend that though currently understudied, microinsurance may be as important a tool as microfinance in poverty alleviation.

Public Support to Food Security in India, Brazil And South Africa: Elements for a Policy Dialogue
Darana Souza and Danuta Chmielewska (2011)
Presenting a comparative study of the food-security policy agendas in India, Brazil and South Africa, the paper shows that there are similarities as well as differences in the policies adopted, priorities given to various food-security issues. The experience of each of these countries in ensuring food-security provides an important opportunity for these three countries to share knowledge on the fight against poverty, hunger and diseases.

Rethinking the global food crisis
Derek D. Headey (2010)
This article argues against the conventional explanations of the 2008 global food crisis and suggests that trade factors were more important than previously realized.

R&D Investment in National and International Agricultural Research: An Ex-Ante Analysis of Productivity and Poverty Impact
Pratt, Alejandro Nin, and Shenggen Fan (2010)
This study estimates the allocation of agricultural R&D investment necessary to maximize productivity growth and poverty reduction in developing countries.

Rethinking agricultural production collectivities: The case for a group approach to energize agricultureand empower poor farmers
Bina Agarwal (2010)
Drawing upon experiences of collective farming in a few transition countries and in India in contemporary times, the paper reconstructs the case for production collectivities in a situation of increasing marginalization and feminization of agriculture.

Revival of the Public Distribution System: Evidence and Explanations
Reetika Khera (2011)
A nine-state survey of the PDS in India shows that the revival of the scheme in several states, which can be traced, in large part, to a renewed political interest, has positively impacted food security situation in rural India. Therefore it is perhaps more sensible to further improve the PDS, rather than replace it with cash transfers.

Rising food prices and coping strategies – household level evidence from Afghanistan
Anna D’Souza and Dean Jollife (2010)
A household-level research in Afghanistan reveals that the 2007-2008 global food crisis had an adverse impact on its people. The paper examines the food-based coping mechanisms that the households employed during such shocks and found that during the summer of 2008, over one- third of Afghan households were unable to meet their minimum daily energy requirements.

Diana Fletschner and Lisa Kenney (2011)
Enhancing financial access for women is contingent upon specific targeting of women through suitable innovations in financial products that account for the differential socio-economic working conditions for women.

Smallholder agriculture in East Africa: trends, constraints and opportunities
Adeleke Salami, Abdul B. Kamara and Zuzana Brixiova (2010)
This paper investigates trends and opportunities in smallholder farming in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Socio-economic impact of mobile phones on Indian agriculture
Surabhi Mittal, Sanjay Gandhi and Gaurav Tripathi (2010)
“Field investigations conducted from August 2008 to November 2008 in the states of India where mobile-enabled agricultural information service providers are operating, show that mobile telephones are being used in ways that contribute to agricultural productivity improvements, implying that along with improvements in supporting infrastructure and capacity building, mobile telephony can help in disseminating information to realize much needed productivity gains in agriculture.

State-led or market-led green revolution? role of private irrigation investment vis-à-vis local government programs in West Bengal's farm productivity growth
Pranab Bardhan, Dilip Mookherjee, and Neha Kumar (2009)
A study of West Bengal farms finds that both public initiatives and private investment in irrigation were drivers of the region's spectacular growth in agricultural productivity.

The Decline and Rise of Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa Since 1961
Block, Steven (2010)
Contrary to consensus, this paper argues that agricultural productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has been a “qualified success.” Though total factor productivity was nearly stagnant between the 1960s and 1980s, it has accelerated since then and particularly in the 2000s, with a net 36% crop output increase between 1960 and 2002. 

The (evolving) role of agriculture in poverty reduction—an empirical perspective
Luc Christiaensen, Lionel Demery, and Jesper Kuhl (2010)
This article conducts a valuable review of the literature on agriculture's impact on economic growth and poverty reduction and then empirically studies this relationship. The authors find that agricultural growth is particularly effective in reducing poverty among the extremely poor (i.e. those making less than a dollar a day), but that it is less effective in doing so in unequal societies.

The development impact of a best practice seasonal worker policy
John Gibson and David McKenzie (2010)
This study finds that New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer program had a very positive impact on migrant-sending communities in Tonga and Vanuatu and recommends the scheme as a best practice model for other countries.

The fast track land reform programme and livelihoods in Zimbabwe: a case study of households at Athlone farm in Murehwa districtr poor farmers
Shingirai Mandizadza (2010)
After being allocated plots under the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), beneficiaries in Athlone have engaged in activities ranging from crop production to other non-land based activities and despite the challenges that they face, Athlone households have better livelihoods than they would have enjoyed without the land, implying that if certain favourable government policies were put in place and the macro-economic conditions change they could even produce marketable surplus.

The impact of microcredit on the poor in Bangladesh: revisiting the evidence center for clobal development
David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch (2009)
This paper attempts to resolve conflicting findings about the impact of microcredit programs. The authors replicate three leading microfinance studies and find that the evidence for microcredit reducing poverty and smoothing consumption, especially when targeted towards women and the extremely poor, is weaker than generally assumed.

The political economy of hunger in 21st century India
Jayati Ghosh (2010)
The urgent need to deal with the persistent problem of food insecurity in India requires multi-pronged policy interventions that cover a wide range of issues including addressing the policy neglect of agriculture under neoliberal market-oriented policy framework, banning financial speculation in the global commodity market and creating public food distribution system that guarantees universal access to food.

The Renewed Case for Farmers' Cooperatives: Diagnostics and Implications from Ghana
Francesconi, Gian Nicola and Fleur Wouterse (2011)
This study examines why many Ghanaian farmers' organizations have failed to effectively mobilize, concluding that membership structures and rules of conduct are important determinants of organizational effectiveness.

The Sahel's Silent Maize Revolution: Analyzing Maize Productivity in Mali at the Farm-Level
Jeremy Foltz, Ursula Aldana, and Paul Laris (2011)
Using micro-level panel data from farmers, this study argues that Mali's impressive growth in maize production can be attributed to improved fertilizer usage rather than to changes in seed varieties or management practices.

Trends in Diversion of PDS Grain
Khera, Reetika (2011)
The diversion of grains from the Public Distribution System and the scale and coverage of the institution's operation has been closely interlinked in India in recent times.

Transmission of world food price changes to markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
Nicholas Minot (2011)
The study examines the degree to which changes in world food markets influence the price of staples in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study states that staple food prices rose over 50 percent between mid-2007 and mid-2008 and that African governments can moderate the effects of such price increases by pursuing more predictable policies.

Tribal Movements and Livelihoods: Recent Developments in Orissa
Sakti Padhi and Nilakantha Panigrahi (2011)
Critical review of major tribal policies and programmes of the state of Orissa shows that the various developmental policies of the state of Orissa have had negative impact on tribal people’s access to and structure of livelihood.

When is Capital Enough to Get Female Microenterprises Growing? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Ghana
Marcel Fafchamps, David McKenzie, Simon Quinn, and Christopher Woodruff (2011)
In contrast to the results of three recent randomized controlled trials conducted in Asia, this randomized controlled trial finds that grants benefit male enterprise owners more than female enterprise owners, and wealthier female enterprise owners tend to benefit more than poor female enterprise owners.

Who Is Benefiting from Fertilizer Subsidies in Indonesia?
Camilo Gomez Osorio, Dwi Endah Abriningrum, Enrique Blanco Armas, and Muhammad Firdaus (2011)
This article argues that Indonesia's fertilizer subsidy program is not the optimal policy for small farmers or for agricultural productivity in general.