Agricultural development has traditionally focused on raising productivity and maximizing production of cereals. In this regard, the world’s farmers and farming systems have made enormous advances, multiplying cereal production several times over in the past half century.

Longitudinal household data can have considerable advantages over much more widely used cross-sectional data. The collection of longitudinal data, however, may be difficult and expensive.

The author argues that African rural areas behave differently from rural areas in fully commercialized market economies. In commercialized economies, price signals quickly induce factor flows, including items such as investment and technological change.

Globalization could and should benefit developing countries. But unlike a rising tide that lifts all boats, large and small, globalization is unequal. It has fallen far short of its much-ballyhooed potential to help the world’s poorest people out of poverty.

The emergence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) of the subtype H5N1 and the potential threat of a global human pandemic have been issues of great concern to the international community since its regional and global spread since 2003.