The World Bank’s WDR 2008: Agriculture for Development

by Sophia Murphy and Tilman Santarius

Introduction

For the first time in 25 years, the World Bank’s annual Development Report (WDR 2008) is dedicated to agriculture. The report is a welcome indicator of renewed interest in agriculture worldwide that is urgently needed. The generationlong silence on agriculture is indicative of how agriculture went out of fashion in development circles. Assistance to agriculture from bilateral and multilateral sources decreased from US$ 6.2 billion to US$ 2.3 billion between 1980 and 2002 (in 2002 prices), a neglect that is all but  incomprehensible given that three quarters of the world’s population living below the $2 per day poverty line live in rural areas, most of them directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture for their survival.1 The share of agriculture in the International Financial Institutions’ portfolio of loans fell from roughly 20 percent of the total to nearer 9 percent over the 1990s.

The World Bank is not alone in producing a report on agriculture this year. In April 2007, under the auspices of Heinrich Böll Foundation, Misereor and the Wuppertal Institute, a panel of trade and agriculture experts that had met over a two-year period as the EcoFair Trade Dialogue published a report entitled, Slow Trade – Sound Farming. A Multilateral Framework for Sustainable Markets in Agriculture. This review of the WDR 2008 is written from the perspective of that report, looking for synergies and informed in its critique by the thinking of the panel.

The choice of agriculture as the focus for the WDR 2008 is welcome. The report offers a comprehensive, detailed discussion of many of the facets of agricultural production and distribution, giving space to questions of gender equity, political voice, peasant organizing and unequal market power. The strong focus on institutional issues is welcome, as is the serious discussion of many of the
environmental challenges confronting agriculture. Science and technology, in particular, are comprehensively discussed. The following critique is just that: it is focused on where the authors differ with the authors of the WDR 2008. From our perspective, there are still important lacunae in the thinking and analysis that need further debate. For all that, we welcome the report and trust the newly revived interest in agriculture’s role in development will prove lasting.

This review is structured as follows: an overview of the thinking and assumptions underlying the WDR 2008, followed by a more careful look at a handful of the issues that the EcoFair Trade Dialogue focused on: international trade; corporate concentration and market power; the role of science and technology; environmental constraints; and, governance. It concludes with a look at the bigger picture for agriculture in the 21st century.

N.B. The WDR 2008 report referred to in this review is the July 2007 draft edition of the report. The report Slow Trade – Sound Farming. A Multilateral Framework for Sustainable Markets in Agriculture (2007) can be downloaded at www.ecofair-trade.org.