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This paper uses a newly constructed cross country database composed of comparable variables and aggregates from household surveys to examine the full range of income generating activities carried out by rural households in order to determine: 1) the relative importance of the gamut of income generating activities in general and across wealth categories; 2), the relative importance of diversification versus specialization at the household level; and 3) the influence of rural income generating activities on poverty and inequality. Analysis of the RIGA cross country dataset paints a clear picture of multiple activities across rural space and diversification across rural households. This is true across countries in all four continents, though less so in the African countries included in the dataset. For most countries the largest share of income stems from off farm activities, and the largest share of households have diversified sources of income. Diversification, not specialization, is the norm, although most countries show significant levels of household specialization in non-agricultural activities as well. Nevertheless, agricultural based sources of income remain critically important for rural livelihoods in all countries, both in terms of the overall share of agriculture in rural incomes as well as the large share of households that still specialize in agricultural sources of income. 1 The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the institutions with which they are affiliated. We would like to acknowledge Marika Krausova for her excellent work in helping build the RIGA database and Genny Bonomi and Karen Hudlet for research assistance. We would like to thank Karen Macours, Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Derek Byerlee and Gustavo Anriquez for constructive comments on the text and data, as well as other numerous researchers for helping us check the data. We would also like to thank participants at workshops at the FAO in Rome and Santiago, the IAAE meetings in Brisbane and the AES meetings in Reading, for comments and discussion.

The sluggish supply response in most developing countries to the apparently favourable agricultural market situation of the past few years can be explained by the limited ability of price incentives to bring about an increase in production and marketed surplus in the presence of binding non-price constraints. This article characterises farm household heterogeneity in access to assets, markets and infrastructure drawing on household survey data from 15 developing countries. We relate this heterogeneity in access to household ability to engage successfully in agricultural output markets and find consistent supporting evidence for the hypothesis that this lack of access is significantly constraining their potential to engage successfully in agriculture.Dans la plupart des pays en de´veloppement, la re´action de l 0 offre a`la situation des marche´s agricoles -depuis quelques anne´es favorable -est lente, et ce en raison de la capacite´limite´e des incitations en termes de prix a`ge´ne´rer une augmentation de la production et des exce´dents commercialise´s, en pre´sence d 0 importantes contraintes non tarifaires. S 0 appuyant sur des donne´es d 0 enqueˆtes sur les me´nages recueillies dans 15 pays en de´veloppement, cet article de´crit l 0 he´te´roge´ne´ite´des me´nages agricoles en matie`re d 0 acce`s aux actifs, marche´s et infrastructures. Nous montrons la relation qui existe entre cette he´te´roge´ne´ite´et la capacite´des me´nages a`s 0 engager avec succe`s sur les marche´s de produits agricoles, et trouvons des preuves solides soutenant l 0 hypothe`se selon laquelle ce manque d 0 acce`s limite fortement leur potentiel a`s 0 engager dans l 0 agriculture de manie`re profitable. Context: Assets, Markets, Agriculture and Poverty ReductionDuring the recent spikes in world agricultural prices, several observers noted with concern that despite the improved terms of trade and overall incentives framework for farmers, agricultural supply response in developing countries was very limited. That observation raises the question of what is constraining the ability of farmers in these countries to take advantage of apparently favourable market conditions (FAO, 2009). One explanation is to be found in the importance of non-price factors in determining farmers' marketed surplus, r

Agriculture is at the core of the livelihoods of a large share of rural households throughout the developing world. Agricultural growth is a major engine for overall economic growth and possibly the single most important pathway out of poverty in the rural space. This paper characterizes household access to assets and agrarian institutions of households engaged in agricultural activities in a sample of developing countries. The evidence presented in the paper draws from 15 nationally representative household surveys from four regions of the developing world. We find that the access of rural households to a range of agricultural-specific assets (including land and livestock) and institutions is in general low, though highly heterogeneous across countries, and by categories of households within countries. A large share of rural agricultural households do not use or have access to basic productive inputs, agricultural support services or output markets, and in general it is the landless and the smallest landowners who suffer significantly more from this lack of access. We relate this to the households' ability to engage successfully in commercial farming and find consistent supporting evidence for the hypothesis that this lack of access is significantly constraining their potential to engage successfully in agriculture.