BANGKOK — In the last decade, developing economies in Asia and the Pacific doubled in size, growing over seven percent on average. This growth has garnered much attention and plaudits. Yet, 641 million of the world's poorest — nearly two-thirds of the global total — live in the Asia-Pacific region. Other statistics are equally shocking.

Ninety-seven million children remain underweight. Four million children die before reaching the age of five. Some 566 million people living in rural areas have no access to clean water. And less than a third of rural inhabitants have access to basic sanitation. These fault lines question the sustainability and validity of the current development paradigm, which leaves millions of people trapped in extreme poverty when so much wealth has been generated in such a short time. Most of the poor are in the rural sector and agriculture is their main livelihood.

And this is where the problem lies. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has carried out research that shows that persistent poverty and widening inequality in the region are the result of decades of neglect of agriculture. The analysis — contained in ESCAP's flagship publication, the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2008, launched on March 27 throughout the region — shows that growth strategies and economic policies in the region have systematically overlooked the agricultural sector.