World Bank: Agricultural innovation is the key to reducing poverty
A new report by the World Bank says that developing countries need to invest in agricultural innovation in order to reduce poverty, face climate change and reach food production goals.
Over 80% of poor people around the world live in rural areas; the majority of those work in agriculture. This means that increasing productivity in agriculture is essential to reducing poverty — in fact, the impact that productivity growth in agriculture has on poverty reduction is roughly twice that of manufacturing.
Climate change is also a problem — along with the deterioration of natural resources, it will strongly attack agriculture, mostly impacting the poor and vulnerable, specifically in Africa and Southern Asia, the World Bank says.
To face these challenges, the most important step to take is to increase productivity in agriculture and farmers’ incomes — and the best way to do that is by adopting innovative technologies and practices.
This would allow farmers to increase crop productivity, manage inputs with more efficiency, adopt new crops and production systems, improve crop quality, save natural resources, and adapt to climate change, according to the World –Bank.
For now, research and development in developing countries are still not enough to reach these positive effects, particularly in Africa, the institution claims.
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