Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
15
that value chains are efficient.
In general, agricultural incomes rise as economies grow. In countries with comparative
advantages in agriculture, including some of the case study countries, incomes in
agriculture can exceed average incomes. As noted in the Introduction, this pattern of
development is important, because often in developing countries a disproportionate share
of poor people obtain their incomes from agriculture .
The pattern in which economic growth is linked with growth in agricultural incomes is
more tenuous than the patterns discussed earlier, however. One reason is that
comparative advantages and incomes in agriculture can be quite high in countries that
produce and export high-value crops, but at the same time, a lack of investment or uneven
investment in rural health, education, telecommunications, and transport can cause some
communities and households to be marginalized.
Dramatic Change in Agricultural Markets and Marketing Systems
Over the last five decades, agricultural markets and marketing systems have changed
rapidly and dramatically. In the aftermath of droughts, famines, and oil price shocks in the
mid-1970s and early 1980s, many governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America placed
priority on policy instruments designed to stabilize commodity markets, “get prices right,”
and buffer the poor from food supply shocks.15 To achieve those objectives, many
15 Rashid, Gulati, and Cummings, Jr. (2008); Reardon and Timmer (2007).
FIGURE 6: VALUE ADDED PER AGRICULTURAL WORKER AND GDP
PER CAPITA
Source: World Development Indicators (World Bank 2014h).