"In theory, higher global prices should mean more income for rice farmers in Indonesia. Some of the benefits are trickling down to farmers, but they may not be enough to halt the steady shrinkage of rice paddy, which agriculturalists say is one factor driving up prices. So Indonesia's government is offering incentives to plant more rice and improve other inputs to raise yields.

A new draft bill before Indonesia's parliament would strengthen existing land-usage laws on 15 million hectares of agricultural land. The government is also opening up large tracts of land on Papua and other eastern islands for rice and other food crops, trying to offset the shrinkage on Java. The disadvantage is much lower crop yields on these islands compared with those on Java's fertile soil, typically 24 percent less for rice. Still, these measures are vital to produce more rice."

"Afghanistan is facing an acute food and livelihood crisis. In a country that ranks among the poorest in Asia and least developed in the world, it was estimated that roughly half of the population was already having trouble meeting daily food requirements before the food prices began to rise. With prices of food items now doubled or tripled in many areas, communities' safety nets are failing.

And people are not positive about the future. Afghanistan's wheat harvest is expected to be 36 percent lower than in 2007. There is a need to focus on long term solutions to Afghanistan's food crisis. This means that the underlying causes of the problem, such as poverty, lack of infrastructure and markets, limited arable land, environmental degradation and conflict, must be addressed."

"Tougher economic times are making investors more impatient with what they see as monetary policy flaws by some emerging market central banks, driving up borrowing costs for emerging issuers seen to be soft on inflation. Vietnam, Sri Lanka and India have come under fire from ratings agencies such as Fitch and Standard & Poor's for their inadequate policy response to inflation.

In this climate of risk aversion, emerging markets have seen their sovereign credit ratings hit and their debt yields widen on perceived central bank dithering. Analysts say many developing economies are behind the curve in raising interest rates over the last few months. They also say some central bankers have been overly optimistic, seeing the recent spike in food prices as short-term."

"China is making progress in a five-year effort launched in 2006 to improve energy efficiency in its fuel-guzzling economy, but the country is still falling short of its annual targets. Energy consumption per unit of economic output fell by 3.66 percent last year, after a 1.79 percent drop in 2006.

Beijing has imposed efficiency goals as part of efforts to clean up China's heavily polluted environment and reduce growing reliance on imported oil. Chinese industries use 20 to 100 percent more energy per unit of output than their U.S., Japanese and other counterparts, according to the World Bank. China's government says the gap is even bigger, putting energy use at 3.4 times the world average."

"Prices of essential commodities are soaring in the Indian spot and futures market as deficient rains in half of the country delayed sowing, spurring fears of lower production. India's annual monsoon rains, crucial to its economy, covered the entire country five days earlier than normal, but some places received excess rains, creating floods, while others got scant showers, creating a drought-like situation.

With only 40 percent of farmland irrigated, most of India's small farmers rely on the monsoon to water their crops. Farming and related activities provide livelihood to more than two-thirds of India's 1.1 billion people. A good season of rains also boosts rural demand for a range of products and is a key factor in determining expansion in the larger economy."

"Bangladesh maintains a very restrictive trade policy and has one of the highest trade barriers in South Asia, a World Bank report released Monday said. The country has very high tariff and non-tariff trade compared to most countries of the region. Bangladesh ranked 113th and 107th in terms of trade policy and institutional environment, respectively, out of 125 countries studied.

Among the world economies, Bangladesh is ranked 59th out of 125 countries in terms of market access. The other indicators where Bangladesh has done relatively well are trade outcomes (51st out of 160 countries), external environment (59th out of 125) and trade facilitation (87th out of 151)."

"Both farmers and consumers are understandably unhappy about the state of agriculture in Pakistan. The reason is that overall productivity in agriculture is low and has not increased by much in the last decade at least. In the meantime, the cost of doing business has been rising as has the demand for agricultural products. What should be done to make agriculture more productive and profitable? There is no simple answer.

But one thing is almost indisputable: governments should leave greater space for the private sector to produce and distribute agricultural products and limit their role to providing public goods, facilitating farmers in raising farm productivity, regulating markets and protecting the interests of low-income consumers."

"Poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, which encompasses economic, political and social deprivations of the people in a country. The recent global trends of poverty suggest that rapid economic growth over a prolonged period is essential for its reduction. At the macro level, economic growth implies greater availability of public resources to improve the quantity and quality of education, health and other services.

The role of microfinance should be strengthened. The poor use financial services not only for business purpose but also invest in health and education to manage household emergencies. The evidence shows that health is a major trigger that pushes people into poverty and the poor into deeper poverty. Targeted poverty alleviation programs, such as nutritional programs for children, employment generation through infrastructure development projects and credit based self employment programs, are helpful to reduce poverty."

"The fishing industry in Myanmar has not recovered even ten weeks after the devastating cyclone hit the coasts of the country. Only a fraction of fishermen have been able to return to work, as most await assistance to repair their damaged fishing gear or buy fresh equipment.

Last year, Myanmar exported more than 350,000 tons of fish to Europe, China, Thailand, Japan and the Middle East. However, cold-store managers in Yangon report not receiving any fish to export from the delta over the past month. Despite the importance of the industry, it receives little domestic and international assistance compared with other sectors, such as health and agriculture."

"The scale and speed of modern urbanization is a critical global trend that is shaping the future. In Asia migration is mostly occurring in poor and middle-income countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and India where one in three urban inhabitants -- an estimated one billion people -- live in slums. Ironically, many slums sit on much coveted highly valued land in central parts of major cities.

Because of this, some have called for developers to re-house slum dwellers in high-rise buildings at affordable prices and then use the remaining freed-up land to create profitable developments for the growing middle class. These sorts of projects, which have already happened in cities such as Mumbai, seem to promise a win-win for developers and the poor alike. Yet critics continue to doubt their effectiveness."

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