World Food Policy WFP Volume 4, No. 2, Spring 2018 | Page 50

World Food Policy
from technological changes vary sig-
nificantly among the developing coun-
tries. China is often cited as one of the
most successful cases on promoting
agricultural growth through technolog-
ical change (Huang and Rozelle, 1996;
Fan and Pardey, 1997; Jin et al., 2010;
Babu et al., 2015). For nearly all crops in
the developing countries in Asia, Chi-
na consistently has the highest yields
(FAO, 2016). The relationship between
the current crop yield (or annual growth
rate of yield in the past 4 decades) and
rural poverty reduction among the de-
veloping countries also suggests that
technology change is essential for in-
clusive rural transformation. irrigation since the 1980s (Wang et al.
2005). Although India experienced fall-
ing irrigation investment levels in 1980s
and 1990s, the country resumed such
investment early this century (Varma
et al., 2012). The low and stagnated
growth of government fiscal income
in the less developed countries in Asia
has limited public expenditure in water
control (Llanto, 2012).
Investment in water control,
both irrigation and flood control, has
been the largest government budget-
ary allocation in agricultural sector in
many countries in Asia. From the 1950s
to the 1970s, most of the government’s
efforts focused on building dams, res-
ervoirs and canal networks. China has
continued to increase its investment in creased from 890 thousand kilometres
in 1978 to 4.4 million kilometres in 2013
(NBSC, 2015); high-speed rail is world
class. Every village have access to pub-
lic, paved roads. Fan and Chan-Kang
(2008) show that road investments have
yielded the highest economic returns in
the eastern and central China, while ru-
ral road construction has most signifi-
While there is no empirical study
on the impact of irrigation expansion
on the speed and inclusiveness of rural
transformation, the international com-
parison of irrigation infrastructure sug-
gests that there is a positive relationship
between them. For example, according
to FAO data, the percentage of cultivat-
Investing in agricultural infra-
ed land equipped for irrigation reached
structure: Water conservancy con-
55% in China, 45% in Vietnam, 39% in
struction and inclusive rural transfor-
India, and only 14% in the Philippines
mation. The countries with high levels
in 2010.
and growth of agricultural productivity
are also often associated with large in- Investing in transportation: Road in-
vestments in water infrastructure. The frastructure and inclusive rural trans-
literature has shown that access to irri- formation. Investing in rural roads can
gated water can substantially increase provide rural people with access to a
crop production, promote crop diver- vast range of valuable economic activ-
sification and facilitate rural transfor- ities and markets and therefore rural
mation and reduce poverty in Asia (Fan transformation.
et al., 2004 and 2008; Rosegrant and
China has invested substantial-
Svendsen, 1993; Hussain and Hanjra, ly on rural infrastructure over the last
2003).
several decades. Highway mileage in-
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