Policy Strategy and Instruments for Alleviating Rural Poverty

N V Namboodiri The emphasis in government policy on target-group specific and social sector related government expenditure for poverty alleviation programmes and neglet of government expenditure for agricultural growth together with an ad hoc policy approach to farm input subsidies and interest rates for rural credit in addition to the misdirected policy of relying on relative farm prices as an engine of agricultural growth are disconcerting developments as agricultural growth and poverty alleviation are perfectly compatible objectives. Against this background this paper analyses the prerequisites of alleviation of absolute rural poverty with a view to identifying a strategy and policy priorities for poverty alleviation.