This collection of essays presents evidence from a variety of countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Fiji, Brazil, Nigeria and Kenya. In a developing world, people in the rural areas of such countries are poorer than city dwellers. Reducing this disparity gap even slightly, could greatly improve the quality of the lives of a great number of people. The authors discuss the roles of both markets and governments in attempts to reduce the income disparities, which, between non-agricultural and agricultural activities can be as high as 6:1 – as, for example, in Africa.