the primary need is for investments in public goods that can support agricultural and rural development such as agricultural research and rural infrastructure raising rural incomes is central to the nearterm target of the first millennium development goal mdg which calls for the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger with specific targets that include halving between and the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day income growth is essential for sustained poverty reduction in developing countries although the distribution of income and income growth matters too and while food security has many facets most of the world s hungry are chronically hungry and they are chronically hungry because they are poor