A lot of focus has been given, in the past couple of years, to how agriculture can have impacts that go beyond economic growth and poverty reduction, to include better health and nutrition and even building resilience to climate change and conflict. In the special “Feeding the World” issue of Theory and Praxis, Clemens Breisinger, Research Fellow at IFPRI and I, discuss the new role of agriculture and recommend how development assistance and national government expenditures can adapt to this new role.