The State of Agricultural Transformation in Taiwan, China; the Philippines; Ethiopia; and Malawi

In order to gain a nuanced insight into the causal connections between political leadership and agricultural transformation, the book studies four empirical country case studies. The cases include both successful and unsuccessful cases of agricultural transformations. This chapter outlines the first step of our empirical inquiry and takes stock of the state of the agricultural transformation in our four cases. This includes the well-known successful agricultural transformation in Taiwan, China (1950–1980), the failed agricultural transformations in the Philippines (1946–2020) and Malawi (1964–2020), and the mixed record of Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation (1994–2020).