Indonesian agriculture is at a crossroads. Supporting the livelihood of millions of Indonesians, it needs to underpin renewed and robust growth of the economy; and be a key component of the Government's poverty alleviation strategy. The challenge for the future is to reinvigorate productivity gains among rural producers, and provide the foundation for long run sustainability of these productivity gains. Productivity gains are key to farmer income growth, and for this rebuilding the research and extension systems that have seen a marked deterioration in recent years will be critical.

This report demonstrates that financial cooperatives can be sustainable providers of financial services in rural areas and development assistance needs to consider supporting them as a means to enhance access to rural finance. It does not suggest that financial cooperatives are the only providers or the preferred channel in all circumstances. For financial cooperatives to function as sustainable institutions, governments need to provide an enabling environment, not exercise excessive control that restricts growth and consolidation, and not use them as channels to provide subsidized credit.

This report focuses on the potential and opportunities for smallholder commercialization in Zambia. The paper discusses the framework for Zambia's smallholder commercialization strategy, the current state of smallholder agriculture in Zambia, key issues, support from agribusiness to smallholders, and development of potential and opportunities for smallholder commercialization. The paper concludes with three strategy areas: how to strengthen existing market mechanisms, reform of sectoral policies, and investments in public infrastructure.

This report presents an update on the economic challenges facing Ethiopia with a focus on the shared goal of accelerating equitable growth. The starting point is the Government's own Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), which is in the process of finalization, and is designed to cover the period 2005-2010.

Despite its vast agriculture potential, Africa is increasingly dependent on food imports from the rest of the world to satisfy its consumption needs. Food output has not kept pace with population growth, and more than 80 percent of production gains since 1980 have come from the expansion of cropped areas rather than from greater productivity of areas already cultivated. This paper looks at the current requirements for seed trade in Africa, the obstacles, status of ongoing plans for regional harmonization, challenges of harmonization, and opportunities for near-term improvement.

This report summarizes and consolidates the findings of three Bank studies on poverty issues in Mexico, written as part of the second phase of this work: Urban Poverty, Rural Poverty, and Social Protection. It also expands on how Mexico will seek to use social protection policy as a vehicle for redistribution. Discussed in Chapter 1, the state has a clear role in providing risk-pooling mechanisms where private insurance markets fail (e.g., old age and health insurance), but the role of social protection policy in promoting redistribution is more an issue of national choice.

This report presents the impact and lessons learned from the Andhra Pradesh Drought Adaptation Initiative (APDAI). The APDAI was implemented as a package of pilot activities in two dryland districts in Andhra Pradesh (Anantapur and Mahbubnagar) with the aim of developing and testing approaches for natural resource-based economic activities to better respond to current climate variability and long-term consequences of climate change. The report discusses how innovations are being scaled up through integration into regular government programs for greater outreach.

The report builds on the 'towards a vision for agricultural innovation in Chile in 2030' report and is further based on a series of background papers and a consultation process that took place between December 2010 and May 2011. The current study is the third in a series of three that were agreed between the Government of Chile and the World Bank to support the development of a long-term agricultural innovation strategy. The first paper reviewed the functioning of the three main public technological institutes and recommended how their performance can be improved.

This paper aims to develop a vision statement for the agricultural sector that may then guide the future investments in Chile's agricultural innovation system, A joint and shared perspective on how the sector might look and what role agricultural innovation should play in getting there is a prerequisite for any effective strategy. But developing such a vision is not only a function of what the country wants: it also depends on the context in which Chile's agricultural sector will find itself.

Market access has been identified as one of the foremost factors influencing the performance of small-scale producers in developing countries, and in particular least-developed countries. Smallholder access to markets for higher-value or differentiated agricultural and food products (hereafter HVAF) is recognized as a vital opportunity to enhance and diversify the livelihoods of lower-income farm households and reduce rural poverty more generally (World Bank 2007a).