Chronic neglect of the agricultural sector in Asia and the Pacific is condemning 218 million people to continuing extreme poverty, and widening the gap between the region’s rich and poor, according to the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2008, launched today (27th March) by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

ESCAP’s focus on the agricultural sector comes amid signs of rising food prices, pressured by soaring demand for biofuels. The survey says that biofuels are not only hurting poor consumers in Asia and the Pacific through high food prices, but they are also failing to help the region's poor farmers who do not have the resources to adapt their land to the biofuel crops.

“Governments must show greater political will to address decades of policy neglect and failure in the agricultural sector,” said Noeleen Heyzer, UN Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Secretary of ESCAP. “It is simply unacceptable that at a time when the economic growth of Asia and the Pacific has surpassed all expectations, we are not doing all that we can to improve the lives of more than 200 million people living in such poverty.”

This year’s Survey, entitled “Sustaining Growth and Sharing Prosperity,” says 218 million – a third of the region’s poor, largely living in rural areas – could be lifted out of poverty by raising agricultural productivity. The Survey also calls for a comprehensive liberalization of global trade in agriculture, as this would take a further 48 million people out of poverty in the region.

“Agriculture provides employment for 60 per cent of the working population, mostly poor, in Asia and the Pacific, but decades of neglect by policy-makers have weakened the sector’s capacity to lower poverty and inequality,” said Ravi Ratnayake, the director of ESCAP’s Poverty and Development Division, which produces the Survey. “Growth and productivity in agriculture have been slowing, and the ‘green revolution’ that boosted agriculture yields in the 1970s has bypassed millions.”

The Survey proposes a strategy to ensure agriculture is both economically and socially viable, contributing to efforts to eradicate poverty in the region and returns agriculture to its rightful place in reducing poverty and inequality.

Agriculture needs revitalization. This requires a market orientation with a focus on improving agricultural productivity. Also needed are reforms in land policies, connecting the rural poor to cities and markets, and making it easier for farmers to access loans and crop insurance. Along with this approach, diversification of skills should complement agricultural development – by empowering the poor, particularly women, improving skills to tap labour market opportunities and by promoting rural non-farm activities and regional growth centres.

“Without these measures, the gap between rich and poor in the region will only get wider and millions will be condemned to lives of persistent poverty,” said Heyzer. “The cold, hard truth of the matter is that extreme poverty will never disappear without investment in agriculture.”