Theme 1: Macro-growth dimensions of agricultural development
All societies have paid considerable attention to agricultural development and to the local food security it can provide. Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt all produced manuscripts on farm technology, best practices, and even grain storage rules and techniques. But agri- cultural development as an analytical topic,
with economics as an organizing framework, dates to the rapid emergence of Western Europe from the late eighteenth century. Eco- nomic historians have documented the crit- ical role of agriculture in the development of virtually all the now-rich countries in the world, an experience drawn upon by W. Arthur Lewis when he wrote: “industrial and agrar- ian revolutions always go together, and . . . economies in which agriculture is stagnant do not show industrial development” (Lewis 1954, p. 433).