Six main questions, about agricultural and rural development as it relates to overall national development: 1. How can total agricultural output and productivity per capita be substantially increased in a manner that will directly benefit the average small farmer and the landless rural dweller while providing a sufficient food surplus to promote food security and support a growing urban, industrial sector?

2. What is the process by which traditional low-productivity peasant farms are transformed into high-productivity commercial enterprises?

3. When traditional family farmers and peasant cultivators resist change, is their behavior stubborn and irrational, or are they acting rationally within the context of their particular economic environment?

4. What are the effects of the high risks faced by farmers in low-income countries, how do farm families cope with these risks, and what policies are appropriate to lessen risk?

5. Are economic and price incentives sufficient to elicit output increases among peasant agriculturalists, or are institutional and structural changes in rural farming systems also required?

6. Is raising agricultural productivity sufficient to improve rural life, or must there be concomitant off-farm employment creation along with improvements in educational, medical, and other social services? In other words, what do we mean by rural development, and how can it be achieved?