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How important is agricultural growth to poverty reduction? This article first sets out the theoretical reasons for expecting agricultural growth to reduce poverty. Several plausible and strong arguments apply -including the creation of jobs on the land, linkages from farming to the rest of the rural economy, and a decline in the real cost of food for the whole economy -but the degree of impact is in all cases qualified by particular circumstances. Hence, the article deploys a cross-country estimation of the links between agricultural yield per unit area and measures of poverty. This produces strong confirmation of the hypothesised linkages. It is unlikely that there are many other development interventions capable of reducing the numbers in poverty so effectively.How important is agricultural growth to alleviating poverty in a world in which farming's share of total output is in decline?We can assess the impact of agricultural growth on poverty in general and rural poverty in particular, in two ways. One draws on theory, building plausible arguments about how changes in agricultural production may affect the numbers of poor and the depth of their poverty. The other takes an empirical approach, by observing directly changes in agricultural productivity and poverty, and then estimating the degree to which they are related. This article deploys both approaches.

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Despite on-going change, rural areas remain characterised by relative abundance of natural capital, and by distance and the relatively high cost of movement. They are also home to most of the world's poor. Compared with urban areas which enjoy proximity to customers and producers, rural areas may have comparative advantage only in primary activities based on immobile natural resources and closely related activities. There are differences, however, between 'peri-urban', 'middle countryside' and 'remote' areas. In some areas, economic growth, urban expansion, and improved transport and communications create new urban-oriented opportunities for rural services and labour. Remote areas will continue to present special difficulties, however; and, in general, the potential for nonagricultural diversification is less than is sometimes argued.

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Despite the widely acknowledged prognosis that the danger of unrelenting hunger and famine looms large in sub-Saharan Africa and that there is a constant need for donors to provide much required food relief, there is a paucity of literature based on comprehensive empirical work at the household or individual level. Based on data collected across two years and two locations in rural Kenya, attempts to develop further the literature on household food security. Food balances are computed and various approaches to food poverty analysis are employed by setting a very low poverty line to determine the proportion of households whose members would require external food support. Results show that per capita food production is low and varies with rainfall and food poverty and inequality in distribution are high. A great deal could be done, therefore, in the sphere of livelihood opportunities to enhance household purchasing power and hence effective demand and food distribution.

Ensuring food and nutrition security in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa is a critical challenge. Often, information on the level of insecurity is either scanty or unavailable. This paper looks at food and nutrition access at the household level and its determinants in two cases in one of the sub-Saharan African countries: Kenya. Data were collected from a repeat-visit survey of 50 households in two areas of Makueni District, located in the southern part of the country, during 1994-1996, a period that included 'normal' and drought seasons. Even in a season of normal rains, 32 to 42 per cent of households were food insecure, percentages that rose to 40 and 52 during drought. The annual incidence of food poverty was higher (46%) in the drier area than in the wetter area (36%). Food distribution among households, however, showed a reverse trend with the drier area having a Gini coefficient of 0.32 compared to 0.34 in the wetter area. Regressions were used to examine the causes of food and nutrition insecurity. Amongst the main factors improving food and nutrition security was earnings from off the farm. Households headed by women were more food secure than those headed by men, all other things being equal. These findings provide support for prioritising entitlements in terms of earnings and food prices in policy-making, rather than focusing on food production alone. They also indicate that there may be higher social returns to addressing issues of livelihoods associated with women rather than men.