Even though urbanization is increasing at a rapid pace, most of the world's poor people still live in rural areas. Thus anyone concerned for the poor should have a strong interest in rural development. A second reason for giving appropriate attention to the rural sector is the enormous challenge facing developing countries, which have to satisfy the nutritional needs of their growing populations.

The production increases of recent decades have been significant, as a result in part of expansion in area and in part of increases in productivity. However, negative side effects-deforestation, desertification, salinization - may impair the capacity to produce increasing amounts of food in the future. Clearly, much more attention needs to be paid to increasing productivity without negatively affecting natural resources and the environment.