It is often argued that returns to R&D are low in developing countries, making imported technologies a better path to growth. Yet technologies designed for frontier nations may not fit local conditions, limiting their productivity gains. This column ...

Evidence from Brazil suggests that the crop-specific knowledge of domestic migrant farmers, during a period of large-scale migration, was a key driver of the recent transformation of the country’s export patterns – highlighting the importance of migr...

Evidence from Colombia shows that weather shocks induce a fragmentation of the farm-size distribution and exacerbate the prevalence of small farms in an economy, shedding light on how climate change might lower agricultural productivity in developing...

By facilitating access to critical agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilisers and farm machinery, trade has spurred agricultural modernisation that has raised agricultural yields and increased food consumption worldwide.