Thakare, like nearly all the farmers in this arid region of Vidarbha in the state of Maharashtra, is dependent on India's annual monsoon to provide the water necessary to grow his cotton and soybeans. A failed monsoon meant disaster. Without the rain, the crops withered, and so did his primary source of income. Every year, all Thakare could do as the midyear planting season approached was wait and hope that the monsoon would deliver enough rain so he could support his family.


Then came the pond. The local government sent a construction team to Thakare's farm last year to dig the 10-ft.-deep (3 m) pond, financing the $600 investment with funds from a new program to support local agriculture. Strategically located in the path of runoff rainwater, the pond — a common feature of rural-resource management — collects water from the monsoon rains that would otherwise have just been wasted. By capturing and storing rainwater, the pond helps to fill the farm's wells. With a more reliable supply of water, Thakare's productivity soared. Not only did he plant his usual summer cotton crop last year, but he also had enough water to grow an entirely new crop of sunflowers during the winter. The pond, he says, helped double his usual output of lentils as well. The added sales put an extra $1,000 in his pocket, which he saved as a nest egg for his two children. "I feel that my life is secure," says Thakare, 36. "You don't worry about what will happen in the future."

With so much yield for so few bucks, it might seem surprising that Indian authorities hadn't dug Thakare a pond long before now. But small farmers like Thakare have been neglected for much of the past three decades — and not only in India. Throughout the developing world, agriculture was the also-ran of the global economy. Governments equated economic progress with steel mills and shoe factories. While urban centers thrived and city dwellers got rich, hundreds of millions of farmers remained mired in poverty. Agriculture in many developing nations stagnated.

Now the farm is back. Fears of food shortages, a rethinking of antipoverty priorities and the crushing recession are causing a dramatic shift in world economic policy in favor of greater support for agriculture. Farmers like Thakare are being showered with more aid and investment by governments and development agencies than they have in decades in a renewed global quest for food security and rural development. The effort is still in its early stages, and some promises made have yet to be translated into real results. Some programs already in place may prove to be flawed. But a new commitment to agriculture by the global community is clearly emerging. The latest G-8 summit of the world's largest economies, held in Italy in July, declared "there is an urgent need for decisive action to free humankind from hunger" and, citing the sector's perennial neglect, pledged $20 billion for agriculture. "Since 2007, we have seen greater attention from world leaders on food security, in developed and developing countries alike," says Kostas Stamoulis, director of agricultural-development economics at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. The resources being committed to farming "is putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is kind of money."