Where agricultural transformation has occurred, markets function well and agriculture is a waning portion of overall national product, such as the rice growing regions of Southeast Asia, farm diversification might be a desirable outcome of pursuing a market liberalization objective, but is probably not an end in itself. African farmers tend to diversify their production activities widely to mitigate risk, but to only produce one or two exportable commodities. High transaction costs are common barriers to diversification into new export opportunities, especially for the poor and less well-informed, who tend to fall behind during times of rapid structural change. Download full-text discussion paper .
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