So the control of farmland by the poor tends to be a safeguard against poverty,'' the report says. Al-Sultan points out that during the 1970s and most of the 1980s, food staple yields rose sharply and poverty declined rapidly. This neglect of agriculture, in terms of both international development co-operation and domestic resource allocation, must be redressed if we hope to achieve the challenging poverty targets of the Millennium Summit,'' he adds. Cutting world poverty in half requires a focus on reviving agricultural development and responding to the needs of rural populations. According to IFAD, allocating resources to the rural and the poor will not compromise economic growth.
Capital is always scarce in low-income countries.
Developing countries have high ratios of labour to capital. The report details four dimensions of poverty that it says are of critical importance for understanding the challenges facing rural poverty reduction. First, food staples retain a critical role in the livelihoods of the rural poor who spend most of their time growing them. Second, reducing rural poverty requires better allocation and distribution of water to the rural poor. Nearly 350 million rural poor live in dryland areas already suffering from severe water stress.