Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dianalyn A. Claveria BSMA 1201: Trends in Agricultural Productivity
Dianalyn A. Claveria BSMA 1201: Trends in Agricultural Productivity
Claveria
BSMA 1201
The International Food Policy research institute points up that a wide range
of successful programs have reduced hunger while raising agricultural productivity
over the last several decades, including:
1. Green revolution successes in asia
2. containment of wheat rusts
3. improved maize and pest-resistant cassavas in sub-saharan africa
4. shallow tubewells for rice and homestead food production in bangladesh
5. hybrid rice and mung bean improvement in east asia
6. pearl millet and sorghum and smallholder dairy marketing in india
7. improved tilapia in the philippines
8. successful land tenure reform in china and vietnam
9. cotton reforms in burkina faso
10. and improvements of markets in kenya
• In asian developing countries, cereal yields per hectare in 2005 were nearly
triple their 1960 levels. Production in latin america also posted strong gains.
• Hunger in china fell
• Agriculture in south asia performed well, although hunger is thought to have
increased in india in recent years
• And in sub-saharan africa, yields increased by only about one-third.
• One of the causes is that in many areas of africa, the population has
reached a size where traditional slash-and-burn agricultural practices
are no longer feasible without reusing land after too little rest, resulting
in significant deterioration of soil nutrients. But subsistence farmers
cannot purchase improved seeds, fertilizers, and other essentials of modern
agriculture; the result can be a poverty trap in which farmers must work
harder and harder just to stay in place.
• Recurrent famine, regional famine, and catastrophic food shortages have
repeatedly plagued many of the least developed countries, particularly in
Africa.
• The 2011 drought and famine in the horn of Africa, which affected over 13
million people, brought renewed attention to the problem. Of Africa’s 750
million people, more than 270 million suffer from some form of malnutrition
associated with inadequate food supplies
• The severe famine of 1973–1974 took the lives of hundreds of thousands
and left many more with permanent damage from malnutrition across the
continent in the sahelian belt that stretches below the sahara from cape
verde, off the coast of senegal in the west, all the way to ethiopia in the east
• At least 22 African nations faced severe famine
• Calls to mount a new green revolution in africa like the successful one in
asia are now starting to get the hearing they deserve, with public, private,
and nonprofit sector actors getting involved—including major support from
the alliance for a green revolution in africa (AGRA), chaired by former UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Exercises
1. A widespread scarcity of food,caused by several factors including war,
inflation, crop failure, population imbalance or government policies.
2. The boost in grain production associated with the scientific discovery of new
hybrid seed varieties of wheat, rice, and corn that have resulted in high farm
yields in many developing countries.
3. It targets the allocation of 10% of national budgets to agriculture and a 6%
rate of growth in the agriculture sector at the national level.
4. What is the key role of the government?