Abstract

Agriculture contributes to development as an economic activity, as a livelihood, and as a provider of environmental services, making the sector a unique instrument for development. In the 21st century, agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction. Three of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas - 2.1 billion living on less than $2 a day and 880 million on less than $1 a day; most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The worlds of agriculture are vast, varied, and rapidly changing, with the right policies and supportive investments at local, national, and global levels. Today’s agriculture offers new opportunities to hundreds of millions of rural poor to move out of poverty. Pathways out of poverty open to them by agriculture include smallholder farming and animal husbandry, employment in the “new agriculture” of high-value products, and entrepreneurship and jobs in the emerging rural, non-farm economy. This paper focuses on the study of agricultural development for transforming countries in general and India in particular. In this paper agriculture consists of crops, livestock, agro-forestry, and aquaculture. It does not include forestry and commercial capture fisheries because they require vastly different analyses. The paper finds that the growth in agriculture and the rural non-farm economy is needed to reduce rural poverty and narrow the urban-rural divide in transforming countries.

KEYWORDS: Disparity, Transforming Countries, Poverty, Hunger, Non-Farm.