The UN said that an agricultural revolution could lift over 200 million of Asia’s poor out of poverty.

"A revolution through improved productivity in the Asia-Pacific agriculture sector, aimed at over coming decades of policy neglect, could lift a third of the region’s poor out of poverty," The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said in its 2008 economic and social survey of the region.

The survey said that focus on the agriculture sector will be a focus on 60 percent of the region’s population and home to a majority of the country’s poor. Nearly two thirds of the world’s poor live in the region and the rural poor account for 70 percent of the poor in the region whose main livelihood is agriculture.

Adverse terms of trade have led to many countries becoming poorer while developed countries gain more out of trading with the poor countries.

"Large gains can be achieved by way of comprehensively liberalising global agricultural trade and there is a need for broadening international trade negotiations beyond the Doha round," the survey said pointing out that the Doha reforms could result in aggregate welfare losses for Bangladesh due to adverse terms of trade effect while in India, the poorest households could fall while the richest could gain.

ESCAP said that through comprehensive agricultural trade reforms, regional and global welfare gains could increase several times over with global gains expected to exceed US$ 23 billion in the short-run and US$ 37 billion in the long-run.

Rural debt had increased in the farming communities, most acutely seen in Sri Lanka, India, China and Thailand with over 86,900 farmers committing suicide in India between 2001 and 2005.

ESCAP said that the agricultural revolution had two vital components to it.

Firstly, by improving rural infrastructure (particularly electricity and roads), agricultural technology and the capacity to adapt these technologies and speeding up diversification and commercialisation the poor will be given access to markets, which is vital if the agricultural revolution is to be a success.

"Diversification into high value crops is feasible and financially rewarding because of globalisation and changing dietary patterns and is a driving force for gains in productivity," the survey said.

The survey said that research and development and education will result in labour productivity and impact on poverty reduction. The second area of focus to bring about an agricultural revolution was to empower the poor, especially the women, with skills necessary to tap into non-farm and regional labour markets.