This report, published in November 2007, says that the agricultural and rural sectors have suffered from neglect and under-investment over the past 20 years. While 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture in developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at relatively high levels.

The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse. That is the message from the report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, a major new report by over 400 scientists launched on 15 April.

The House of Commons' International Development Committee has published this report in June 2009, summary as follows:

As businesses and consumers try to make sense of competing certification schemes like Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance, this report published in August 2009 by the Food Ethics Council argues that they need to consider the pros and cons of different labels, and wider questions over corporate accountability for international development claims and poverty reduction.

The World Bank has produced its latest world development report on the theme of development and climate change. It says that developing countries can shift to lower-carbon paths while promoting development and reducing poverty, but this depends on financial and technical assistance from high-income countries.

The Guardian published an article on 12 December 2009 arguing that Fairtrade is a bit more problematic and a bit less win-win than its advocates suggest. It says that Fairtrade does not actually benefit the world's poorest farmers and is based on an anti-mechanisation, anti-large scale view of development, and that very little of the profit from the end product actually makes its way back to the farmers. You can read the Guardian article here.

The UK Collaborative on Development Sciences has published a new book by Gordon Conway (formerly the Chief Scientific Advisor for DFID) and Jeff Waage (Director of the London International Development Centre).