AFRICAN AGRICULTURE and RURAL DEVELOPMENT ECON 3510 May 27 and June 1. 2010 Arch Ritter

1. AFRICAN AGRICULTURE and RURAL DEVELOPMENT ECON 3510 May 27 and June 1. 2010 Arch Ritter

3. Brooke Bond Tea Estate, Kenya

4. Coffee Gathering, Kenya

5. Agroforestry, Kenya

6. Agenda • Importance of Agriculture and Rural Areas in Development • Varying Agricultural Systems in Africa • Africa’s Recent Agricultural Record • Agriculture’s Contributions to Development • Small scale "Peasant" or Subsistence Agriculture • Revised Strategies: Main Elements • The Land Reform Issue in Africa

7. Importance of Agriculture and Rural Areas in Development: • All people have to eat; i.e. agriculture and food are of key importance • Large proportions of populations are in agriculture and rural (64% in Africa, 2007) • Disproportionately large numbers of rural people are poor, however this is measured • Rural activities earn or save foreign exchange • Rural people save and invest • Rural people constitute a reservoir of entrepreneurial talent

11. II. Varying Agricultural Systems Africa General Features: • Role of Women in farming • Importance of non-agricultural rural activities • "Home-based” enterprise • From "traditional" to "modern," Partial commercialization virtually everywhere • Complex rural-urban interactions • Institutional Forms • Small-scale family farming, communal property; • Small-scale family farming with private ownership • Some export-oriented commercial farms • Corporate farms • Occasionally some state farms: few now • Foreign Sovereign Ownership (by governments or state enterprises)

12. Kenya: Central Province

13. Kenya: Western Province

14. III. Africa’s Recent Agricultural Record: Some Positive Achievements World Bank, WDI, 2009, p 144,

15. Some negatives: Longer term decline in food production per capita (see chart) From net agricultural exporter to net importer 1970 Net Exports: + $ 3.2 billion 1999 Net Importer - $ 3.8 billion General lag in improving agricultural productivity Continuing relative economic deprivation in rural areas Relative neglect by public policy and investment

17. Agriculture’s Contributions to Development A. Earlier Views in theorizing of 1950's and 1960's (e.g. Lewis; dependency approach; Soviet model, …) • Supplying foodstuffs to other sectors (the “agricultural surplus”) • Releasing surplus labour to the “modern sector" • Providing a surplus for investment (savings) to the “modern sector” • Earning foreign exchange • Providing a rural market for the urban industrial sector [Note: these functions were largely passive and extractive, with the main emphasis being focused on in the urban industrial modern sector.]

18. B. Policy Consequences of these earlier views: • focus on modern industry in urban areas and ignore agriculture and rural areas • use agriculture to service the modern sector with outflows of people, food and savings • discriminate in favour of modern industrial sector and against agriculture and rural areas (i.e. "Urban Bias”) re. • Taxation patterns • Food pricing policy • Infrastructure investment • Tariff and non-tariff barriers • Social expenditures • Credit policies • Exchange rate policies

19. B. More Contemporary Views Emphasizing Agriculture: Rural Development Agriculture should be emphasized for the following reasons: • To raise rural income, because poverty is over-represented in rural areas; • Rates of return are often higher in parts of agriculture than other sectors; • Rural entrepreneurship can serve as a strong foundation for economic improvement and “pro-poor” development;

20. 4. Non-agricultural informal sector activities can also be valuable for income generation; 5. Increasing agricultural output can stimulate linked industrial and service sector activities; 6. Reinforcing the traditional cultures (language, arts, music, handicrafts, and "ways of life") which are often to be found in rural areas.

21. Small scale "Peasant" or Subsistence Agriculture • Older views regarding peasant agriculture 2. The theory of the optimizing peasant (Michael Lipton) 3. Issues of Land Use and Tenure: • Fragmentation of land holdings • Population pressures, fragmentation and land degradation • Gender and Tenure: Men Own the land; women work it! • Insecurity of tenure and variable farm incomes obstruct access to credit;

22. Current Views Regarding Rural and Agricultural Development Policies: • Farm people can be innovative in the right policy and institutional environment; • Aim for “broad-based rural development” focusing on rural people; • Design “pro-poor” rural development strategies

23. VII. Revised Strategies: Main Elements How can agriculture-for-development agendas best be implemented? By designing policies and decision-making processes suited to each country’s economic and social conditions, • mobilizing political support, and • improving the governance of agriculture What are effective instruments in using agriculture for development? They include • increasing the assets of poor households, • making householders—and agriculture in general—more productive, creating opportunities in the rural nonfarm economy that the rural poor can seize.

24. VII. Revised Strategies: Main Elements, cont’d 1. Support “green revolution” innovations: • Emphasize improved seed varieties for higher productivity; • Adaptive biological research and agricultural extension [Note CGIAR] • Emphasize agro-forestry in many places; • Irrigation, maybe drainage; 2. Emphasize complementary services: • Credit; • Marketing support; • Relevant technical and agricultural education

25. VII. Revised Strategies: Main Elements, cont’d 3. Emphasize employment creation and anti-poverty types of investment in agriculture and related rural activities; • Infrastructure investment in rural areas for job creation and public usage (roads, irrigation, drainage, dispensaries, water availability, social infrastructure) • i.e. rural public works, employing rural people; • But avoid large scale labour -displacing mechanization 4. Don’t discriminate against agriculture and rural areas in general public policies; • Aim for a “level playing field” re specific policies; Taxation patterns; Food pricing policy; Tariff and non-tariff barriers; Exchange rate policies Social expenditures; Credit policies;

26. VII. Revised Strategies: Main Elements, cont’d 5. Support rural non-agricultural and often “informal sector” economic activities in rural areas; 6. Agrarian and/or land reform where appropriate; 7. Supportive social institutions: • schools, • health centres, • Farmers’ co-operatives, 8. Emphasize also environmental sustainability in rural areas and agriculture

27. VIII. The Land Reform Issue in Africa • Land tenure and land reform: Definitions • Complexities of African land tenure structures • Varieties of Land reform • Privatizing Communal Lands? • Breaking up large estates? • Consolidation of mini-farms? • Other property arrangements: Co-operatives? 4. The politics of land reform 5. Some issues of dividing large scale agricultural properties

28. VIII. The Land Reform Issue in Africa, continued A. Institutional Forms • Small-scale family farming, communal property; • Small-scale family farming with private ownership • Some large commercial and/or export-oriented farms • Corporate farms • Occasionally some state farms: few now • Foreign Sovereign Ownership (by governments or state enterprises)

29. Note: None of the land tenure systems is perfect Strengths and weaknesses of each system: • Small-scale family farming, communal property; • Small-scale family farming with private ownership • Some large commercial and/or export-oriented farms • Corporate farms • Occasionally some state farms (Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia): few now • Foreign Sovereign Ownership (China)

30. B. Do communal land tenure systems need “reform”? Disadvantages of communal tenure: • Reduces security of tenure, and therefore investment & productivity? • Prevents land-based credits • Reduces mobility of farmers; prevents strangers or newcomers obtaining land • Men control the land, insecurity for women though women often do a disproportionate share of the farm work • Innovative farmers access to additional land may be blocked Is tenure reform needed for communally-held lands?

31. Type of tenure change re communal lands: Land registration and “Titling” • Aimed at increasing security of tenure or land rights • Promoting “marketization” of land Conclusion in text: • “The effect of land tenure reform on land-use patterns, control, and credit and investment has been …. minimal.” • Institute land reform “only if necessary” due to the difficulty of implementation and uncertain results

32. C. Breaking up Large Estates, Latin American Style Arguments in favour of land redistribution: • Equity of income distribution • Efficiency of land use: are large farm units inefficient” • Complexity of issue • Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Implementation Difficulties • Should the large units be broken up? • Who should receive the small holdings? • Complementary reforms are necessary (training, some infrastructure, marketing. Input provisioning…..) • Political Complexities

33. Two Cases: Kenya’s “million acre scheme” Quite successful, re equity and production Zimbabwe, 2004-2009 Major disaster; Politicized distribution Output volumes severely reduced Productive employment impaired Conclusion

34. IX. The Six “I”s of Agricultural Development: • Incentives • Innovations • Infrastructure • Institutions • Initiative • Inputs