Even though the importance of promoting agriculture for poverty reduction is well-established, many countries have policies that neglect agricultural development or that are biased in favor of large-scale farmers. Reforming such policies to promote small-holder based agricultural development has proved to be a major challenge. IFPRI’s research in this field uses quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the political economy of agricultural policies and to examine the options to overcome obstacles to pro-poor agricultural policy reform. Examples include research on the role of participation in formulating agricultural development strategies in West Africa, and research on the political economy of agricultural policy reform in India.