International Agricultural Development

International agricultural development seeks to address and try to solve issues in agriculture that deal with topics such as inequality, food production, and distribution in areas of the world that need help. These areas of the world are often referred to as "Third World" or developing countries. People of these countries face problems of malnutrition, food insecurity, and rural poverty. Because the agricultural sector is so important, it requires funding and aid. The problem is that either there is not enough assistance or there isn't any at all.

The lack of growth in agricultural production has been an important topic of discussion in recent years. There are two trends that are important to agricultural investment: foreign aid to agriculture and domestic public expenditure to agriculture.

Figure 7 depicts the sectoral distribution of total aid. The Ag, Forestry, Fishing sector shows a steady decline from 1995 to 2005, and then the beginning of a slight growth. The growth in the sectoral distribution of total aid could be due to the global food crisis that severely affected developing countries in 2007-2008.


There are many programs and organizations that specialize in the issue of agriculture and development. The Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) advises US AID on "on agriculture and higher education issues pertinent to food insecurity in developing countries."

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) strives to "create holistic policies that are capable of addressing the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainable development."

IFAD's mission focuses on "rural poverty reduction, working with poor rural populations in developing countries to eliminate poverty, hunger and malnutrition; raise their productivity and incomes; and improve the quality of their lives."

An example of Agricultural and International Development at work is "India's Rice Revolution."

In an area where 93% of the population depend solely on growing rice and potatoes to sustain their lives and families, a discovery was made that could change the way in which crops are grown without herbicides or GMO's. These farmers have changed how they plant rice, they focus on "less is more." This means that instead of planting the seedlings in large clumps in water-logged fields, the farmers take care of and nurture a smaller number of seeds and then transplant the plants into fields. They space out the plants and keep the soil drier while carefully weeding around the plants and roots. The good news is that even a 30% increase in rice yields could help alleviate poverty.

If we can find new ways of planting, increasing yields, and teaching sustainable practices--in developed and developing countries--the world could be one step closer to ending agricultural and international development issues.