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Existing safety net programs in India provide income and nutritional assistance during different stages of an individual’s life. Critics have pointed out to inefficiencies in the design and delivery mechanisms which reduce the effectiveness of these programs in benefiting the targeted population. In this chapter, we argue that safety nets should account for the changing economic structure, demographic transitions and shifting livelihood patterns. As India urbanizes, focusing on urban poor, diversifying away from staple grain-focused policy is essential. Use of tools such as ICTs to curb corruption and leakages from the safety nets is essential. Finally, we highlight the complementary role of essential public goods provision together with the expansion of safety nets for reducing vulnerability and structural poverty.

Highlights • Women in agriculture allocate significant time to agriculture and household activities. • Rising time demands during peak season agriculture may affect women’s nutrition. • Women’s time trade-offs negatively affect consumption of various nutrients. • These associations vary by cropping pattern & land ownership. • Policies must recognize women’s time constraints to improve their nutrition., Women in agriculture are involved in agricultural activities and are solely responsible for household-level unpaid work. They face severe time trade-offs between agricultural and household activities across crop seasons. Recent literature suggests that these time trade-offs may negatively impact their nutrition. However, there is no quantitative evidence exploring this relationship within an agricultural context. This paper addresses this research gap by analyzing the relationship between women’s time trade-offs and their nutritional outcomes. Using a unique ten-month primary panel data of 960 women from India, our findings show that women are severely time-constrained, as they contribute significantly to agricultural as well as domestic work. Our results show that during peak seasons relative to lean seasons, women’s time trade-offs (rising opportunity cost of time) are negatively associated with the intake of calories, proteins, iron,zinc and Vitamin A. We show that this negative relationship is manifested severely among women who are landless and cultivate paddy alone (food crop) or paddy and cotton (mixed crop). This study highlights the gendered role of agricultural activities in rural households and the need to recognize time as a scarce resource when implementing policies and programs involving women in agriculture. We contribute to the literature of agriculture-nutrition linkages by examining the the time use pathway in detail. Besides providing novel metrics, we discuss several policy implications to reduce women’s time constraints and enhance their nutrition.

In this paper, we quantify the divergence in the cost of current diets as compared to EAT Lancet recommendations at the subnational-level in India. We use primary data on food prices and household food purchases, and secondary data on food expenditures for a period of 12 months in 2018–19. The cost of the EAT Lancet dietary recommendations for rural India ranges between $3.00- $5.00 per person per day. In contrast, actual dietary intake at present is valued at around $1.00 per person per day. In order to get to the EAT Lancet recommendations individuals will have to spend nearly $1.00 per person per day more on each of meat fish poultry, dairy foods and fruits. The deficit in current diets relative to recommendations is marked by seasonal variations driven by volatility in the underlying food prices. This paper extends the evidence base for the affordability of the EAT Lancet diet to a subnational-level in India, using the most recent data on prices and expenditures, over time. We highlight the need for tracking rural markets at the subnational level, over time for their nutritional quality and ability to provide affordable, nutritious diets to the poor. Crop diversification, investments in rural infrastructure and well-functioning markets can move rural India towards more nutrition sensitive food environments., Highlights • There is a significant gap between current food consumption and the EAT Lancet diets for India. • The cost of the EAT Lancet diets is $3.00- $5.00 per person per day in rural India. • Currently, individuals are consuming the equivalent of $1.00 per person per day. • Additional spending of $1 each is needed in nutrient- dense foods such as meat/fish/poultry, dairy & fruits. • Seasonal fluctuations in price and costs are high for Fruits, Green Leafy Vegetables & other vegetables. • This paper uses primary and secondary data on monthly food consumption and prices at the subnational level for 2018–19.

While obesity across rural India has doubled in the last decade, research explaining such an unprecedented change is sparse. This paper shows that the rise in the incidence of rural obesity is associated with the process of structural transformation, especially within rural spaces. As the distance to nearby towns from the villages has reduced, urban proximity not only leads to improved livelihoods but also a change in dietary practices and access to processed food. Combining the rural sample of India’s latest National Family Health Survey (2015–16) with the estimates for town distance from the village clusters, we show that an additional kilometer of reduction in rural–urban distance increases the risk of obesity among women by 0.06 percent. Our estimates imply that for every kilometer of reduction in rural–urban proximity 3000 rural women become at-risk for obesity. Heterogeneity analysis shows that this burden is higher in towns with a population of over 50,000. We also find that the risk has increased disproportionately among the lower socio-economic classes. Similarly, states at a more mature stage of structural transformation face higher risk of obesity. Finally, we find that higher dietary diversity reduces the influence of urban growth on rural obesity. Our findings underscore the looming dual burden of malnutrition among developing countries and suggest that nutrition policies that promote diet diversity could be a panacea.

As the timeframe for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) came to an end in 2015, the United Nations lauded great progress, calling its MDG campaign the “most successful anti-poverty movement in history” (1). In its final progress report, the United Nations states that poverty has decreased by half and hunger has fallen dramatically (1). Sixty countries are said to have achieved the hunger-reduction target since 1990. Among the achievers are a strikingly large number of the so-called “least developed countries,” and many of them are the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa. There is no doubt that much of the developing world made significant progress in enhancing food supplies and reducing hunger over the past 25 years. However, tracking progress by country and across countries has been marred by the ambiguity of the metrics that have been used.

Highlights • Research and science should not only inform food and environmental policy but should be adopted and mainstreamed into actions at all levels. • Food systems are faced with grander and interconnected challenges and constraints that bring about new research questions. • Research has a vital role in charting a positive and sustainable direction for global food security, nutrition, and health. • The status quo must be challenged to shape food systems transformation to deliver sustainable, healthier diets. • Global Food Security provides a platform where evidence is shared in an accessible manner for those who need to act on it.

This title was first published in 2002: This volume represents some of the proceedings of the 24th conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) held in Berlin, Germany, in August 2000. The papers in this volume include the president's address, the Elmhirst Lecture and a selection of 20 contributed papers. It also includes panel discussion reports, reports on the discussion groups and mini-symposia, poster paper abstracts, and the synoptic view presented at the close of the conference by the new president of the IAAE, Joachin von Braun. The theme of the 24th conference was "Tomorrow's Agriculture: Incentives, Institutions, Infrastructure and Innovations", reflecting the rapid advances being made in the application of biotechnology in both the developed and developing worlds.

The causes of many vexing challenges facing 21st-century society are at the nexus of systems involved in agriculture, health and wealth production, consumption, and distribution. Using food as a test bed, and on the basis of emerging roadmaps that set achievable objectives over a 1- to 3-year horizon, we introduce this special feature with convergence thinking and practice at its core. Specifically, we discuss academic papers structured around four themes: (1) evidence for a need for convergence and underlying mechanisms at the individual and societal levels; (2) strategy for mainstreaming convergence as a driver of business engagement and innovation; (3) convergence in policy and governance; (4) convergence in metrics and methods. Academic papers under each theme are accompanied by a roadmap paper reporting on the current status of concrete transformative convergence-building projects associated with that theme. We believe that the insights provided by these papers have the potential to enable all actors throughout society to singly and collectively work to build supply and demand for nutritious food, in both traditional and modern food systems, while placing the burdens of malnutrition and ill health on their core strategic agendas.

The objective of this paper is to understand individual nutritional outcomes through an examination of gendered time use patterns. The analysis of the data from eight villages in the Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT), India confirm previous conclusions about the gendered influence of agricultural interventions, especially time demands on the rural poor. Agricultural interventions in the harsh, drought-prone environment of the SAT tend to increase the time burden on women. Sociological perspectives indicate that changes in time use patterns are also due to changing agricultural practices such as cropping patterns, type of productive work (farm to non-farm) among other factors, leading to variations in outcomes like nutrition for different members of the household. These changes demand innovative gender-responsive approaches and policies to leverage agriculture for nutrition and health. The paper concludes that empowering women through more information and control over income, assets and resources enhances their agency to make decisions for efficient time use, food consumption, sanitation and healthy practices. The authors opine that the context is important and policies must be based on sound data and rigorous analysis, including social and gender considerations., Highlights • A gendered analysis of time-use patterns in agriculture suggests time use a transformative indicator of gender equality. • Age, education and social groups have varied effects on time-use patterns of men and women in SAT households. • Rural diets to become more diverse and healthy through enhanced quality and quantity of the food baskets along with better sanitation practices.

The pattern of crop diversity in the fields of the developing world has changed fundamentally over the past 200 years with the intensification and commercialization of agriculture. The yield enhancing seed types enabled the intensification of agriculture in areas of the world with high population densities. Intensification of agriculture refers to the increase in output per unit of land used in production, or land productivity. Population densities, expressed as the ratio of labor to land, explain much about where and under which conditions this process has occurred. Agricultural intensification influences the extent of crop diversity in two ways: first, through changes in land use patterns, and second, through crop choice changes. The change in the crop genetic landscape from predominantly traditional to largely modern patterns of genetic variation occurred over the past 200 years and at an accelerated rate since the 1960s with the advent of the Green Revolution.

India's slow progress in combating its malnutrition problem was highlighted most starkly when a comparison between its rates of poverty and malnutrition decline between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s was brought to the fore, with the release of the National Family Health Survey in 2005. In this chapter, the authors bring together several strands of research on malnutrition in India in a comprehensive narrative synthesis of the existing literature. By focusing exclusively on comparable anthropometric outcomes, they throw light on the relative strength of different nutrition determinants and interventions. The authors also differentiate rigorous studies from ones with poor internal validity, to highlight gaps in the literature. At the country level, India's progress in tackling malnutrition has been discordant with its pace of economic growth and poverty decline. Regression-based inequality decomposition by S. Chalasani found that the largest contributions to wealth-based malnutrition inequality come from inequalities in maternal education, followed by birth order.

Since the 2008 food price crisis, food and nutrition security are back on the global development agenda, with particular emphasis on agricultural pathways toward improved nutrition. Parallel efforts are being promoted to improve the data and metrics for monitoring progress toward positive nutritional outcomes, especially for women andchildren.Despitetheincreasedinvestmentintrackingnutritionaloutcomes,theseeffortsareoftenmadeinsilos, which create challenges for integrating nutritional data with other sectoral data, such as those related to agriculture. This paper proposes a minimum set of nutrition indicators to be included in nationally representative agricultural (andmultitopic)householdsurveys.Buildingmultisectoralconvergenceacrossexistingsurveyswillallowustobetter identify priority interventions and to monitor progress toward improved nutrition targets.

Nutrition is affected by numerous environmental and societal causes. This paper starts with a simple framework based on three domains: nutritional quality, economic viability, and environmental sustainability, and calls for an integrated approach in research to simultaneously account for all three. It highlights limitations in the current understanding of each domain, and how they influence one another. Five research topics are identified: measuring the three domains (nutritional quality, economic viability, environmental sustainability); modeling across disciplines; furthering the analysis of food systems in relation to the three domains; connecting climate change and variability to nutritional quality; and increasing attention to inequities among population groups in relation to the three domains. For an integrated approach to be developed, there is a need to identify and disseminate available metrics, modeling techniques, and tools to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. This is a first step so that a systems approach that takes into account potential environmental and economic trade-offs becomes the norm in analyzing nutrition and food-security patterns. Such an approach will help fill critical knowledge gaps and will guide researchers seeking to define and address specific research questions in nutrition in their wider socioeconomic and environmental contexts.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that 843 million people worldwide are hungry and a greater number suffer from nutrient deficiencies. Approximately one billion people have inadequate protein intake. The challenge of preventing hunger and malnutrition will become even greater as the global population grows from the current 7.2 billion people to 9.6 billion by 2050. With increases in income, population, and demand for more nutrient-dense foods, global meat production is projected to increase by 206 million tons per year during the next 35 years. These changes in population and dietary practices have led to a tremendous rise in the demand for food protein, especially animal-source protein. Consuming the required amounts of protein is fundamental to human growth and health. Protein needs can be met through intakes of animal and plant-source foods. Increased consumption of food proteins is associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions and overutilization of water. Consequently, concerns exist regarding impacts of agricultural production, processing and distribution of food protein on the environment, ecosystem, and sustainability. To address these challenging issues, the New York Academy of Sciences organized the conference "Frontiers in Agricultural Sustainability: Studying the Protein Supply Chain to Improve Dietary Quality" to explore sustainable innovations in food science and programming aimed at producing the required quality and quantity of protein through improved supply chains worldwide. This report provides an extensive discussion of these issues and summaries of the presentations from the conference.

In this paper we study the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture and their iron deficiency status in Maharashtra, India. This is the first time the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) has been used in association with explicit measurement of medical biomarkers for women’s iron deficiency status. Using primary data for 960 women we find that the log odds of a poor iron status in women decline as women’s empowerment levels in agriculture improve. Further, this decline is seen in the presence of multiple dietary diversity measures (dietary diversity score, share of rice and wheat in the diet, total iron intake and iron intake from iron-rich food groups – all for 24-h and 30-day recalls) suggesting that in addition to dietary pathways women’s empowerment can play a role in addressing micronutrient deficiencies like those of iron in a vulnerable sub-group of the population. It also reinforces the need to move away from the ‘staple grain fundamentalism’ that has characterized agricultural policy in India, towards more nutrition-sensitive food systems.

Agriculture research knowledge and technology that transcends national borders has played a crucial role in enhancing developing country productivity growth over the past 50 years. The demand for international agriculture research (IAR) continues to be strong today even while becoming increasingly differentiated by the stage of development that a particular country or region is in. The supply of IAR to developing country research programs is, however, becoming increasingly constrained by: variable donor support; a push toward downstream product adaptation and dissemination activities relative to innovation and product development; and a lack of clear links between international public good research and national agriculture development priorities. Country-level donor coordination and alignment mechanisms, specified in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, do not explicitly account for the role of IAR in the development process. While the movement toward national ownership of its development agenda and donor alignment around it is unquestionably good, an unintended consequence could be a break in the R&D pipeline that supplies public good research and technologies for enhancing developing country agriculture productivity growth. The article presents options for rebuilding synergies between international public good research and national agriculture development priorities.

Rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) has become a topic of major importance in rural development, as by the mid 2000s, RNFE constituted 35% of rural incomes in Africa and 50% in both Asia and Latin America. The traditional view of RNFE was a sleepy hinterland activity cut off from changes in the national, let alone the global economy. That view was assailed by sweeping changes in rural areas starting with the Green Revolution, then rur-urbanization, and lately, by globalization intervening via both trade and modernization of the national economy including the rise of modern retail and processing. In this article, we hypothesize and offer emerging evidence that the strongest and most positive effects on RNFE of globalization come in the zones that are rur-urbanized, with a tradeables growth-motor induced RNFE sector with clusters of small/medium enterprises for manufactures, and a preponderance of services. Surprisingly, the trade effects are least and the domestic market transformation effects are the strongest. The most challenges are posed for zones that are rur-urbanized and dense zone RNFE with low-moderate local growth motors. The least effects are on hinterland zones. The policy implications are to promote tradeables growth motors (key to creating RNFE in services, the major component of RNFE), and to incorporate “competitiveness”—in a changing urban and global economy—into RNFE promotion.

This article re-visits the age-old proposition that agriculture growth contributes to overall economic development, and asks whether the relationship still holds in an increasingly globalized world. There is overwhelming empirical support for the above proposition, indeed, it is hard to find exceptions, barring a few city states, where sustained economic development has not been preceded by robust agricultural growth. However, there are a large number of countries that have witnessed neither agricultural growth nor economic development. Even in countries where agricultural growth has been significant, dramatic inter-regional differences persist. This article examines the factors that contribute to or constrain the process of agricultural transformation. Does the process of globalization, and the resultant changes in agrifood systems, offer new opportunities for agriculture-led growth, or will it further marginalize excluded countries, regions, and groups? The factors that cause exclusion are examined both in terms of globalization forces and in terms of domestic shortcomings in policies and governance. Policy interventions that attempt to reduce the costs of transition to a globalized agricultural system are explored, including safety nets for those left behind.

Rapid economic and income growth, urbanization, and globalization are leading to a dramatic shift of Asian diets away from staples and increasingly towards livestock and dairy products, vegetables and fruit, and fats and oils. While the diversification of diets away from the traditional dominance of rice with rising incomes is expected and observed, current food consumption patterns are showing signs of convergence towards a Western diet. The diet transition is characterized by increased consumption of: wheat; temperate fruit and vegetables and high protein and energy dense food. Globalization and the consequent global interconnectedness of the urban middle class, is the driving force behind the convergence of diets. The rapid spread of global supermarket chains and fast food restaurants is reinforcing the above trends. The growing demand for diet diversity cannot be met solely by the traditional food supply chain. It requires the modernisation of the food retail sector, and the vertical integration of the food supply chain, in effect linking the consumers’ plate to the farmers’ plow. As a consequence, Asian agriculture is on an irreversible path leading away from its traditional pre-occupation with cereal crop production, especially rice, towards a production system that is becoming increasingly commercialized and diversified. This paper describes the determinants and trends in the diversification and Westernization of Asian diets. Implications of the evolving demand trends for food supply and retail systems are presented. The paper discusses the prospects for small farmer participation in the emerging food supply system, with a particular emphasis on Asian rice production systems. Finally, the paper considers emerging challenges for food policy, small holder welfare, and agricultural research and development priorities.

The causes of many vexing challenges facing 21st-century society are at the nexus of systems involved in agriculture, health and wealth production, consumption, and distribution. Using food as a test bed, and on the basis of emerging roadmaps that set achievable objectives over a 1- to 3-year horizon, we introduce this special feature with convergence thinking and practice at its core. Specifically, we discuss academic papers structured around four themes: (1) evidence for a need for convergence and underlying mechanisms at the individual and societal levels; (2) strategy for mainstreaming convergence as a driver of business engagement and innovation; (3) convergence in policy and governance; (4) convergence in metrics and methods. Academic papers under each theme are accompanied by a roadmap paper reporting on the current status of concrete transformative convergence-building projects associated with that theme. We believe that the insights provided by these papers have the potential to enable all actors throughout society to singly and collectively work to build supply and demand for nutritious food, in both traditional and modern food systems, while placing the burdens of malnutrition and ill health on their core strategic agendas.

This paper explores linkages between food security and crisis in different contexts, outlining the policy and institutional conditions needed to manage food security during a crisis and to rebuild the resilience of food systems in periods of relative peace. The paper reviews experiences over the past decade of countries in protracted crisis and draws lessons for national and international policy. It assesses the different alternatives on offer in fragile countries to address, for example, the disruption of institutional mechanisms and the decreasing level of support offered by international donors with respect to longer-term expectations. It proposes a Twin Track Approach to enhance food security resilience through specific policies for protracted crises that link immediate hunger relief interventions with a long-term strategy for sustainable growth. Finally, the article analyses policy options and the implications for both short- and longer-term responses vis-a-vis the three dimensions of food security: availability; access; and stability.

Fundamental changes in the world food economy pose new challenges for all participants in the food system, particularly in developing countries. This article focuses on the implications of these changes for international co-operation in food and agriculture. Concentrating especially on the FAO, it reviews the responses in monitoring, advocacy, resource mobilisation, regulation and technical and policy assistance activities. It is argued that the emerging food policy agenda, while addressing new challenges, must nevertheless keep at its centre the fight against hunger and malnutrition. However, shifts in the location and nature of hunger require that new approaches be developed to address this persistent and unacceptable global problem.

Human well-being depends on ecosystem services such as food and clean water. Yet ecosystems and the services they provide are changing, often in ways we cannot anticipate. How can we cope with surprises and uncertainties when we cannot predict them? One approach is to make decisions that are robust to a number of different futures. Those interested in global environmental issues have used scenarios – sets of stories about the future – to help discuss those issues and to identify policy alternatives. To date, most global environmental scenarios have treated ecological dynamics as the product of large-scale anthropogenic drivers and have not considered ecological feedbacks to these drivers. Global scenarios could benefit from the input of ecologists, as this would lead to the incorporation of more realistic ecosystem dynamics. Similarly, ecology could benefit from involvement in scenario planning. Unlike many technical models, scenarios, easily understood as stories, can be used for communication and outreach, to build public appreciation of ecological science and the ecological dilemmas we face.

Over the past decade the locus of agricultural research and development has shifted dramatically from the public to the private multinational sector. Three interrelated forces are transforming the system for supplying improved agricultural technologies to the world’s farmers. The first is the strengthened and evolving environment for protecting intellectual property in plant innovations. The second is the rapid pace of discovery and growth in importance of molecular biology and genetic engineering. Finally, agricultural input and output trade is becoming more open in nearly all countries. These developments have created a powerful new set of incentives for private research investment, altering the structure of the public/private agricultural research endeavor, particularly with respect to crop improvement.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that 843 million people worldwide are hungry and a greater number suffer from nutrient deficiencies. Approximately one billion people have inadequate protein intake. The challenge of preventing hunger and malnutrition will become even greater as the global population grows from the current 7.2 billion people to 9.6 billion by 2050. With increases in income, population, and demand for more nutrient-dense foods, global meat production is projected to increase by 206 million tons per year during the next 35 years. These changes in population and dietary practices have led to a tremendous rise in the demand for food protein, especially animal-source protein. Consuming the required amounts of protein is fundamental to human growth and health. Protein needs can be met through intakes of animal and plant-source foods. Increased consumption of food proteins is associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions and overutilization of water. Consequently, concerns exist regarding impacts of agricultural production, processing and distribution of food protein on the environment, ecosystem, and sustainability. To address these challenging issues, the New York Academy of Sciences organized the conference "Frontiers in Agricultural Sustainability: Studying the Protein Supply Chain to Improve Dietary Quality" to explore sustainable innovations in food science and programming aimed at producing the required quality and quantity of protein through improved supply chains worldwide. This report provides an extensive discussion of these issues and summaries of the presentations from the conference.

In recent years, policy makers have demanded increasing accountability of research funds that support programs of national concern, including agricultural research. I Interdisciplinary teams of social and biological scientists have responded by developing methods for assessing priorities of research projects. These priority-setting teams frequently set research goals after accounting ex ante for the costs and benefits of research programs. The costs of developing new breakthroughs are typically based on the expenditures required to undertake different types of research and the expected length of time it will take to make the breakthrough. Researchers calculate the benefits by assessing how new technology will affect each unit of production (e.g., the yield increase on a hectare of land) and guessing the extent of diffusion of the breakthrough. Prioritization exercises devote much effort to eliciting opinions from scientists on the expected research costs and productivity gains. Since farmers' perceptions (i.e., knowing the willingness of users to adopt a new breakthrough) are important in influencing ultimate adoption, priority-setting teams also allocate resources to elicit opinions from farmers on their willingness to adopt potential new technologies. In this regard, on-farm participatory research is pursued by agricultural scientists as a problem-oriented approach to agricultural research that diagnoses the conditions, practices, and problems of a particular group of farmers and designs a research program that addresses them. A key part of

Since 1989, Vietnam has been exporting 1–2 million tons of rice making it the third largest rice exporting country in the world. What are the prospects for expanding, or even sustaining, Vietnam's recent re-acquired rice exporter status? Two clear conclusions emerge from the discussion in this paper. Given limited opportunities for area expansion, the high cost of further irrigation infrastructure development, and the almost complete exploitation of technological potential in the high-potential environments, it is highly unlikely that rice output in Vietnam will grow to the extent of satisfying rising domestic demands while at the same time leading to an expansion in exports. As for sustaining current export levels, the prospects are moderate to good over the long term, but are quite dependent on further policy and institutional reforms, infrastructural investments, and technological progress. Therefore, rice productivity and exports can be sustained only if government policy is favorable in terms of improving producer incentives, dismantling export barriers, streamlining input and output marketing systems, and enhancing research and infrastructural investments.

The rapid growth in intensive rice production systems in Asia and the consequent increase in indiscriminate insecticide use led to, among others, a disruption in the pestpredator environment, pest outbreaks and yield losses. Adverse consequences on the environment, paddy ecology and human health have been well documented. This paper discusses the impacts of indiscriminate insecticide use, examines technologies for more judicious insecticide use and the risks associated with moving to a reduced insecticide use strategy. Policy and institutional requirements for implementing a reduced insecticide use strategy for rice are also presented.

Marginal areas of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have historically offered low productivity potential and low returns on investments in agricultural productivity growth. Population and agricultural market dynamics in Africa are improving the prospects for productivity-enhancing investments in this environment. In this chapter the authors introduce an opportunity cost framework to demonstrate where agricultural development is now an opportune strategy to reduce marginality in SSA and to guide strategic priority setting for public investment for the sustainable improvement of agricultural productivity. It then lays out policy and technology priorities for sustainable development of marginal production environments.

Agricultural commercialization and diversification involve the gradual replacement of integrated farming systems by specialized enterprises for crop, livestock, poultry and aquaculture products. Changes in product mix and input uses are determined largely by the market forces during this transition. Commercialization of agricultural production is an endogenous process and is accompanied by economic growth, urbanization and withdrawal of labor from the agricultural sector. This paper provides a selective overview and synthesis of the issues involved in the commercialization and diversification process of agriculture, drawing in significant part from the papers in this volume. Based on an assessment of the process observed in selected countries, we show that the commercialization process should not be expected to be a frictionless process, and significant equity and environmental consequences may occur, at least in the short to medium term, particularly when inappropriate policies are followed. However, we highlight that appropriate government policies including investment in rural infrastructure and crop improvement research and extension, establishment of secure rights to land and water, and development and liberalization of capital markets, can help alleviate many of the possible adverse transitional consequences.

A detailed retrospective of the Green Revolution, its achievement and limits in terms of agricultural productivity improvement, and its broader impact at social, environmental, and economic levels is provided. Lessons learned and the strategic insights are reviewed as the world is preparing a “redux” version of the Green Revolution with more integrative environmental and social impact combined with agricultural and economic development. Core policy directions for Green Revolution 2.0 that enhance the spread and sustainable adoption of productivity enhancing technologies are specified.

This special feature calls for forward thinking around paths of convergence for agriculture, health, and wealth. Such convergence aims for a richer integration of smallholder farmers into national and global agricultural and food systems, health systems, value chains, and markets. The articles identify analytical innovation, where disciplines intersect, and cross-sectoral action where single, linear, and siloed approaches have traditionally dominated. The issues addressed are framed by three main themes: ( i ) lessons related to agricultural and food market growth since the 1960s; ( ii ) experiences related to the integration of smallholder agriculture into national and global business agendas; and ( iii ) insights into convergence-building institutional design and policy, including a review of complexity science methods that can inform such processes. In this introductory article, we first discuss the perspectives generated for more impactful policy and action when these three themes converge. We then push thematic boundaries to elaborate a roadmap for a broader, solution-oriented, and transdisciplinary approach to science, policies, and actions. As the global urban population crosses the 50% mark, both smallholder and nonsmallholder agriculture are keys in forging rural–urban links, where both farm and nonfarm activities contribute to sustainable nutrition security. The roadmaps would harness the power of business to reduce hunger and poverty for millions of families, contribute to a better alignment between human biology and modern lifestyles, and stem the spread of noncommunicable chronic diseases.