Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-r5zm4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T21:17:48.260Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Agricultural Policy and Production in Africa: the Aims, the Methods, and the Means

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

The general pattern of agricultural performance in Africa south of the Sahara is rather bleak. Various publications sketch a picture of decreasing output, food shortages, rising imports, soil erosion, famine, and even mass starvation. The annual rate of change of the total agricultural and food production for sub-Saharan Africa compares unfavourably with the already disquieting figures for the developing world in general. The data reflect a serious situation which is all the more alarming because of the enormous importance throughout the continent of the farming sector. Indeed, this is the single largest contributor to G.D.P. in many African economies: more than 80 per cent of the labour force in almost half of these countries are employed in agriculture, and for most of them it provides over 50 per cent of their export earnings.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 1 note 1 F.A.O., Regional Food Plan for Africa (Rome, 1980); U.N./E.C.A., Prospects for a Programme of Action for the Development of Food and Agriculture in Africa, 1980/85 (Rome, 1980); World Bank, World Development Report, 1978 (Washington, D.C., 1978), and World Development Report, 1980 (Washington, D.C., 1980); and O.E.C.D./D.A.C., 1980 Review of Development Co-operation (Paris, 1980).

page 1 note 2 F.A.O., The State of Food and Agriculture, 1979 (Rome, 1980).Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 See, for example, Legum, Colin (ed.), Africa Contemporary Record. Annual Survey and Documents (New York and London), since 1968.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 Notably, F.A.O., Perspective Study on Agricultural Development in the Sahelian Countries, 1975–1990, Vols. I and II (Rome, 1976).Google Scholar

page 3 note 3 Franke, Richard W. and Chasin, Barbara H., Seeds of Famine: ecological destruction and the development dilemma in the West African Sahel (Montclair, N.Y., 1980).Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 Dumont, René, African Agricultural Development: reflections on the major lines of advance and the barriers to progress (Rome, 1966), p. 3.Google Scholar

page 4 note 2 Amin, Samir, ‘Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa – Origins and Contemporary Forms’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), x, 4, 12 1972, pp. 503–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 5 note 1 Hinderink, J. and Tempelman, G. J., Development Policy and Development Practice in Ivory Coast: a miracle or a mirage? (Utrecht, 1979).Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 Sterkenburg, J. J., ‘Agricultural Commercialization in Africa South of the Sahara: the cases of Lesotho and Swaziland’, in Development and Change (The Hague), II, 4, 1980, pp. 573606.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 Acharya, Shankar N., ‘Perspectives and Problems of Development in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in World Development (Oxford), XIX, 1981, pp. 109–47.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 Government of Swaziland, Third National Development Plan, 1978/79–1982/83 (Mbabane, n.d.).

page 7 note 2 Ibid. p. 40.

page 7 note 3 I.L.O./J.A.S.P.A., Reducing Dependence: a strategy for productive employment and development in Swaziland (Geneva, 1977).

page 7 note 4 Pickett, John, ‘Development Planning in Ghana’, in Economic Bulletin for Africa (Addis Ababa/New York), XII, I, 1976, pp. 918.Google Scholar

page 7 note 5 Africa Research Bulletin (Exeter), 1976, Konings, Piet J.J., Capitalist Rice Farming and Peasant Communities in Northern Ghana (Leyden, 1980).Google Scholar

page 8 note 1 Marshall, J., ‘The State of Ambivalence: right and left options in Ghana’, in Review of African Political Economy (London), 5, 1976, pp. 4963;Google Scholardes Auslandes, Statistik, Länderkurbericht, Ghana 1980 (Wiesbaden), V, 8448, 1980.Google Scholar

page 8 note 2 Africa Research Bulletin, 16, 12, 1980.

page 8 note 3 Ibid. 17, 7, 1980.

page 8 note 4 World Bank, Nigeria Agricultural Sector Review. A World Bank Report, Vols. I and II (Washington, D.C., 1979);Google ScholarAy, Peter, Agrarpolitik in Nigeria (Hamburg, 1980).Google Scholar

page 8 note 5 Wallace, T., ‘Agriculture for What? Problems and Strategies of Nigeria's Food Policy in the Third World Plan’, National Food Policy Conference, Ibadan, 1979.Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Kanon, D. Bra, ‘Pour une nouvelle problématique du développement agricole ivorien’, in Revue française d'études politiques africaines (Paris), 150/151, 1978, pp. 1728;Google ScholarPillet-Schwartz, A. M., ‘Les grands enterprises de culture et la promotion des paysans en Côte d'Ivoire’, in Études rurales (Paris), 70, 1978, pp. 6579.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 Kliest, T. J., ‘Development Policy and the Small Farmer in Malawi: growth of inequality’, in Simpson, E. S. (ed.), ‘The Rural Agricultural Sector’, Institute of British Geographers, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1980.Google Scholar

page 10 note 2 Government of Swaziland, op. cit. p. 8.

page 10 note 3 Ibid. p. 69.

page 10 note 4 Ay, op. cit. p. 12.

page 10 note 5 Africa Research Bulletin, 16, 9, 1979.

page 11 note 1 World Bank, op. cit. 1979; F.A.O., Review and Analysis of Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in the Developing Countries since the mid-1960s (Rome, 1979), World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development.

page 11 note 2 Essang, S. M., ‘Achieving Food and Population Balance in Nigeria: priorities in decision making’, in Dams, T. et al. (eds.), Food and Population: priorities in decision making (Nairobi, 1976), pp. 103–13;Google ScholarAmonoo, E., ‘Agricultural Production and Income Distribution in Ghana’, Ph.D. dissertation, Free University of Amsterdam, 1978; Wallace, op. cit.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 Hinderink, J. and Sterkenburg, J. J., ‘Agricultural Commercialization and Rural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: and overview’, Diskussiestukken 5, Vakgroep Sociale Geografie Ontwikkelingslanden, Geografisch Instituut, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, 1979.Google Scholar

page 12 note 2 de Côte d'Ivoire, République, Plan quinquennal de développement économique, social et cultural, 1976–1980 (Abidjan, 1977).Google Scholar

page 16 note 1 Government of Swaziland, op. cit.

page 17 note 1 Ibid. pp. 70–1.

page 17 note 2 Dumont, op. cit. p. 53.

page 18 note 1 Marshall, op. cit.

page 18 note 2 World Bank, op. cit. 1979.

page 19 note 1 Dumont, op. cit. p. 56.

page 19 note 2 Financial Times (London), 1981.

page 21 note 1 Fitch, Bob and Oppenheimer, Mary, Ghana: end of an illusion (New York and London, 1966).Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 World Bank, op. cit. 1978.

page 22 note 1 F.A.O., op. cit. 1980.