Rural development support project (psdr) email format

Madagascar is one o f the poorest countries in the world, with per capita income of about US$330 per year (2007). Poverty remains predominantly rural with about 80 % of the rural population being poor, compared to 54 percent in urban areas. The economy is basically rural, with agriculture as an important engine of growth, contributing one-third of total GDP and 40 percent of total exports. About one-half of Madagascar's land area is cultivable, but little more than 5 percent of the land is currently under crops, with a large part of the cultivated area under irrigation (40 percent). Farming systems are still very traditional. Fishing and aquaculture have become increasingly important sub-sectors o f the Malagasy economy. Performance o f the agricultural sector has not been in line with its potential despite economic liberalization policies and macroeconomic stabilization. The growth has picked up, however, in 2000s (with the exception o f 2002 which was a year o f political crisis), with agriculture GDP increasing at the rate o f 2.6 percent annually over 2003-2006 period. Sustaining this level o f agricultural growth in the long-term is at the heart o f government's poverty alleviation strategy. This will require sustained and broad-based on-farm productivity gains and a diversification toward high value crops. - Prospects for rice and the main cash export crops (e.g. coffee, cloves, sugar, sisal, groundnuts) are good. However, in the medium term, a sustained increase in rice production is expected to be the main engine of sector growth, given its overwhelming dominance in the Malagasy farming systems. The RDSP is definitely closed in late 2012.