Ishaque, M: Agro-Based Industrialisation and Poverty Reducti

Poverty issue has become a major concern of the world.As such it is the prime goal of the Millennium Development Goals set to be achieved by 2015.The incidence of poverty has been higher among the rural folks than among the urbanized.Consequently any policy or strategy aimed at meaningful poverty reduction among the populace should be rural centered.The Green Revolution adopted in Asia and Central America achieved some economic progress and poverty reduction.Ravallion(2007),states that the key lesson Sub-Saharan Africa can learn in replicating China‘s success against poverty is to give high priority to agriculture and rural development in the near future.The expansion of oil palm plantation in Sarawak-Malaysia,from 0.12 percent of land area in 1976 to 4.08 percent in 2004 saw 85 percent fall in the proportion of those living below the poverty line from 51.7 to7.5 Despite the success of agriculture in reducing poverty, development policies and strategies in Ghana are urban centered.This has led to wider poverty incidence between the rural folks and the urbanized.As a result,agro-based industrialization is seen as the sine qua non to reducing the incidence of poverty in Ghana