The nations of Africa are today experiencing the cross-pressures characteristic of modern economic development. The choices of development strategies to focus these pressures constructively are critical, and no choices are more important than those which will determine the interactions between agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

Relationships between agriculture and industry have received wide attention in the literature of development economics. Generally the two sectors have been depicted as competitive for the scarce developmental resources available, with opinion then splitting over the relative emphasis to be placed on each at various stages of the development process. It will be argued here that three fundamental assumptions must be challenged if development strategies are to promote optimal economic growth. (1) The assumption that the fundamental nature of the agricultural-industrial relationship is competitive must be drastically modified. (2) Growth rates of aggregate output and output per capita can no longer be accepted as “the” indicators of developmental economic health. (3) Gross national (or domestic) product measurements must be rejected as providing the most relevant index of aggregate output. Only within a framework of reconstructed assumptions can the optimal relationship between agriculture and manufacturing be defined and achieved.

Structural transformation—“the process by which a predominantly agrarian economy evolves into a diversified industrial economy”—is generally recognized as an essential characteristic of economic development. Structural transformation encompasses many things. Agriculture's relative share in both output and employment declines, and increased specialization of economic functions within and between sectors greatly increases the interdependence of economic units.