The Role of Economic Development and Management in Agriculture: a Brief Review

Two important intellectual developments since World War II have only recently been integrated. The first is the scientific revolution in agriculture, which has transformed the potential productivity of land and rural people from subsistence levels using traditional techniques to levels producing substantial commercial surpluses that are available to feed rapidly rising nonfarm populations. The second is the growing understanding of the role of markets in the process of economic development and the steps governments must take to foster that role. In the last decade of the twentieth century there is now a general agreement that agricultural development requires a market-oriented strategy capable of stimulating rapid technological change in the agricultural sector (Clark, 1940). The agricultural sector continues to play a crucial role for development, especially in low-income countries where the sector is large both in terms of aggregate income and total labor force. Having been a key preoccupation of developing country governments, donors and the international community during the 1960s and 1970s, agriculture disappeared from the development agenda in the 1980s and 1990s, only to reappear in the first decade IJABBR2014eISSN: 2322-4827