Those who study global poverty and ways to reduce it face a perennial set of questions: Do advances in knowledge, research, and technology make a real difference in the lives of poor people? What effect does research have on the poor?

Genetically modified (GM) food crops have inspired increasing controversy over the past decade. By the mid-1990s they were widely grown in the U.S., Canada, and Argentina, but precautionary regulations continue to limit their use elsewhere.

Kenya is an exciting case for those who suspect that agriculture has powerful linkages with the rest of the economy. Over the period 1965-87 Kenya's agricultural production consistently surpassed the average for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Economic development and structural transformation are dynamic processes in which sectoral interactions are numerous and multidirectional.

Why should there be a book about the commercialization of subsistence agriculture, economic development, and nutrition? There are two compelling resasons.

In countries where farming and fishing are major productive activities, processing enterprises can have a strategic developmental role. Infrastructural, institutional, and contractural issues arise around them.

The Kenyan government has actively encouraged cultivation of cash crops as part of its past and present development policies.

Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition are linked with one another. Policies influence the strength and direction of these linkages and welfare outcomes.

The choice between subsistence food crops, on the one hand, and cash crops, especially nonfood cash crops predominantly meant for exports, on the other hand, is a subject of considerable debate among policy makers as well as development specialist

Why should there be a book about the commercialization of subsistence agriculture, economic development, and nutrition? There are two compelling reasons.

One of the most contentious issues in the cash crop/food crop debate revolves around the impact of commercialization of agriculture on the health and nutritional status of women and children/ This chaper examines the effects of commercialization o

The commercialization of agricultur has, in many diverse circumstances, led both to an increase in household income and to changes in the way household resources are organized to earn that income, Have these changes meant that food intakes are mor

In 1984, at the request of the Government of Kenya, IFPRI initiated a study to evaluate the income and nutritional effects of a shift from maize to sugarcane production.

In this chapter, the basic theoretical relationships and definitional issues related to the commercialization of agriculture and described. Simply speaking, cash crops can be defined as crops for sale.

The three chapters in Part III report synthesis is findings from the microlevel IFPRI research in The Gambia, Guatemala, Kenya, the Philippines, and Rwanda, as well as from the other case studies presented in Part V.

The distributional benefits of commercialization of agriculture, access to commercialization opportunities, and sharing of commercialization risks are functions of institutional arrangements.