The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has released their “Rural Poverty Report” for 2011. Some of the major points of the report are as follows:
- The population of the developing world is still more rural than urban: some 3.1 billion people, or 55% of the total population, live in rural areas.
- At least 70% of the world’s very poor people are rural, and a large proportion of the poor and hungry are children and young people.
- Between 2020 and 2025, the total rural population will peak and then start to decline, and the developing world’s urban population will overtake its rural population.
- Despite massive progress in reducing poverty in some parts of the world over the past couple of decades – notably in East Asia – there are still about 1.4 billion people living on less than US$1.25 a day, and close to 1 billion people suffering from hunger.
- South Asia (with the greatest number of poor rural people) and sub-Saharan Africa (with the highest percentage of the population in rural poverty) are the regions worst affected by poverty and hunger.
- While international food prices have declined since mid-2008, they are still substantially higher than prior to the price surge, and they are likely to remain at 2010 levels or higher for the next decade. [Recently, international food prices have surpassed their 2008 levels.]
- To date, much of the production response to higher prices has come from rich countries. Looking to the future, however, it is calculated that feeding a global population of just over 9 billion in 2050 will require a 70% increase in global food production, while ensuring food security for all will demand that issues of access and affordability are also addressed. This will require that agriculture – particularly smallholder agriculture – play a much more effective role in these countries, and that greater and more effective efforts are made to address the concerns of poor rural people as food buyers.
This report recognizes that agriculture, if better suited to meeting new environmental and market risks and opportunities facing smallholders, can remain a primary engine of rural growth and poverty reduction. And this is particularly true in the poorest countries.
The report goes into much further detail about what conditions are necessary to lift rural people out of poverty – while helping agricultural development and enhancing food security at the same time.
Read the report, the first one since 2001, to learn more about the challenges facing “70% of the world’s very poor.”
Posted by Rishi Sidhu.