Author : Balisacan, Arsenio M.

Summary : SEARCA was established more than 40 years ago, at a time when Asia was the focus of the international development aid community and when the agriculture sector accounted for a significant portion of a country’s productive outputs.

Today, agriculture’s relative importance in national income has declined sharply for most countries in the developing world, contributing only, on average, roughly one-tenth in the middle-income countries (including China and most Southeast Asian countries). And yet, while this is so, this sector has continued to account for the lion’s share of poverty in these countries, underscoring the need to foster growth in agriculture in order to help lift rural inhabitants out of poverty.