Agriculture will again become a priority of World Bank research and lending, the institution said on Friday after its annual World Development Report concluded that improving growth in rural areas was by far the best way of reducing poverty among the world’s poorest people.

In the 1990s, agriculture fell out fashion among those directing support for the poor. The proportion of development aid targeted at the agricultural sector fell from 17 per cent in the early 1980s to 3.4 per cent in 2004, while the proportion of World Bank financing for rural areas similarly fell from 30 per cent to 10 per cent over the same period.