The developing countries (LDCs) of Asia are a highly diverse group, encompassing a wide range of cultures, political and social structures, and economic organizations. Given the subject of this paper, our interest here is in the experiences of nonsocialist Asian economies in which agriculture has been a dominant sector (specifically, accounting for at least 25% of GDP and 50% of total employment in the early 1970s). Even within this group, comprised of nine LDCs in East and South Asia, significant differences in per capita income and in economic growth performance are shown (Table 1). A large majority of the population in these countries, especially the lowerincome countries, still live in rural areas, where agriculture and related production activities represent the principal means of livelihood, and in which productivity per person is typically the lowest in the economy. It seems inconceivable that sustained expansion of the national economy can be achieved without raising agricultural productivity and rural income. Yet experience in the past four decades suggests that the development strategies and policies adopted by many Asian LDC governments have paid insufficient attention to agricultural development as a means to promote overall economic growth. Section II of this paper provides a stylized description of the evolution and major economic consequences of LDC development strategies, indicating also how some Asian developing countries have deviated from the general pattern and what the less hospitable external environment in prospect would imply for the choice of development strategy. The effects on agricultural production incentives, both direct and indirect (the latter through the induced real exchange rate changes), are then examined more closely for the nine Asian LDCs in Section III, drawing on empirical