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Sugar and Maize Meal: cases in inappropriate technology from Kenya
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
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Industrialisation in Africa and elsewhere has been beset with problems, many of which relate to the selection of ‘inappropriate technology’, or processes which are far from optimal in their use of labour and capital in the context of developing economy. Many products have no alternative methods of manufacture because they have been created in an industrialised economy, and the only existing technology reflects the skill, labour, and capital constraints of that environment. Plastics moulding, oil refining, and many metal-forming techniques are examples of this situation. The process itself is basic to the nature of the product, so that the choice of a more labour-intensive technology would result in the selection of a different product altogether. There might be no viable alternative, as in the case of petroleum products, or the alternative might be unacceptable because of its inferior performance in relation to the more sophisticated product which people already know. Processes which appear hopelessly capital intensive, and thus quite unsuitable for a developing country, may be appropriate because they form an essential part of an industry whose raw material involves economically and socially beneficial methods of production. In certain circumstances a paper-making factory could fall into this category, since the ‘inappropriateness’ of that technology might be offset by the benefits of the timber industry which is labour intensive and spread over a wide area. Some products, such as medicines, books, or fertilisers are essential and expensive to import, so it may be economically sensible to manufacture them locally in spite of other considerations.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975
References
Page 501 note 1 The research here reported was financed by the University of Nairobi and the Kenyan Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning during 1972–3. The prices for all commodities mentioned in the text have risen substantially since then, but the relationships between them are still more or less the same.
Page 501 note 2 Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, New Lower and Middle Income Cost of Living Indices, 1971 (Nairobi, 1972), table 1.Google Scholar
Page 502 note 1 Republic of Kenya, Development Plan, 1974–1978 (Nairobi, 1974), p. 197.Google Scholar
Page 502 note 2 Ibid. p. 278.
Page 502 note 3 Cf. Gupta, S. C. and Majid, A., Consumer Responses to Changes in Processes and Marketing Policies (New Delhi, 1965), p. 11;Google Scholar and Mwobese, F. and Owiti, H., ‘The Sugar Industry in East Africa’, Nairobi, 1970, p. 8.Google Scholar
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Page 503 note 1 International Labour Office, Emplojment, Incomes and Equality: a strategy for increasing procluctive employment in Kenya (Geneva, 1972), p. 166.Google Scholar
Page 504 note 1 See Harper, M. H. (ed.), Kenyan Smallholders: their attitudes and problems (Rome, 1973), pp. 12, 16, and 18.Google Scholar
Page 504 note 2 For example, Ministry of Agriculture, Farm Management Handbook for Small Farms (Nairobi, 1974),Google Scholar and Extension Service, ‘Farm Management Information for Trans-Nzoia District, Kitale, 1973’.
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Page 504 note 4 Republic of Kenya, Report of the Select Committee on the Maize Industry (Nairobi, 1973), pp. 7 and 18.Google Scholar
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Page 505 note 1 Development Plan, 1974–1978, pp. 241–2.
Page 505 note 2 Stewart, S., The Choice of Techniques: maize grinding in Kenya (Oxford, 1972), table 10.Google Scholar
Page 506 note 1 Manual of Industrial Project Analjsis in Developing Countries, p. 93.
Page 508 note 1 F.A.O./W.H.O., Food Composition Tables for Use in Africa (Rome, 1968), passim;Google ScholarLayham, M. C., Human Nutrition in Tropical Africa (Rome, 1970), Pp. 166–7;Google Scholar and Dema, I. S., Nutrition in Relation to Agricultural Products (Rome, 1969).Google Scholar Dr. Worgan of the London School of Tropical Hygiene also provided useful information on the dietary implications of both posho and jaggery.
Page 508 note 2 Baron, op. cit. p. 7.