farmers benefit directly they earn higher incomes and can use the extra production to enhance their own household food consumption in a second round of benefits productivity growth enables farmers to hire additional workers and buy other goods and services creating multiplier effects that can ripple throughout the economy stimulating overall economic growth and reducing poverty hayami etal growth in agriculture reduces dollaraday headcount poverty more than three times faster than growth in nonagricultural sectors christiaensen demery and kuhl for example relatively strong sustained per capita income growth of percent per year for years a total of approximately percent increase in income would reduce the prevalence of underweight among children in developing countries by only percent fladdad et al