Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the countries of the Central Asia region have undertaken varying levels of policy reforms in their food, agricultural, and natural resources sectors.

Care is the provision in the household and the community of time, attention and support to meet the physical, mental, and social needs of the growing child and other household members.

""This booklet presents eleven stories to show how the broad and often abstract concepts of hunger, poverty, and environmental damage are tragically real when applied to the lives of individuals.

""Rapid expansion of employment in low-income countries is one of the biggest challenges of development. The growth in labor supply in developing countries will remain large for a long time to come.

The product of a conference leading up to the 2020 Vision initiative, Population and Food in the Early Twenty-First Century offers technical background information on the issues of food and hunger in the coming decades.

The papers presented in this edited volume contribute to a better understanding of the nature and direction of these linkages.

This volume evolved from a workshop held at Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, in April 1988. Special thanks are due to Mr. A. Mohanakrish-nan, who gave the inaugural address, and to Dr. V. Rajagopalan for the concluding remarks. We are very grateful to Dr.

This set of chapters resulted from a workshop organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and held in April 1988 in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, India.

Many irrigation systems in India perform at levels far below their design standard, and the need to improve the performance of existing irrigation systems is therefore urgent.