ernourished. That's why the focus of the World Bank and other development agencies is now swinging back to poverty. The farming systems approach will help them set their priorities for investment in food security, poverty reduction and economic growth by funding broad-based agricultural development that reaches and benefits the poorest and hungriest small-scale farm families." Mr. Dixon wrote "Farming Systems and Poverty: Improving livelihoods in a changing world" with Aidan Gulliver, FAO agricultural economist and consultant David Gibbon. More than 50 specialists from all branches of FAO, as well as experts from World Bank, have contributed to the work.
According to FAO, small farmers produce much of the developing world's food. Yet they are generally much poorer than the rest of the population in these countries. Recently priorities in agricultural development focused on structural adjustment and economic reform. While there has been economic growth, and food production has increased, levels of poverty are still high in South Asia and increasing alarmingly in Africa. The emphasis on poverty reduction calls for increased attention to support farm level diversification and growth of off-farm income to supplement intensification of existing production patterns.
The material for the book was derived from a study originally undertaken at the request of the World Bank in order to provide a specifically agricultural perspective to the revision of the Bank's Rural Development Strategy. It draws on many years of specialized work within FAO and the World Bank, as well as in a number of other national and international institutions. The findings presented in the book are supported by more than 20 case studies from around the world, which analyzed innovative approaches to small farm or pastoral development. More than 100 digitized maps were prepared to create an electronic farming systems atlas.
In the preface to the Atlas, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf and President of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, say the book was produced for a wide audience. "It is hoped that policy-makers, researchers, non-governmental organizations and the agribusiness sector will all find its conclusions and recommendations interesting and thought provoking; and that they will carry the analysis further by applying the approach at national level to assist in the formulation of rural development strategies."
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