 African Agriculture in 50Years: Smallholders in a Rapidly Changing World?Paul Collier and Stefan Dercon World Development, 2014, vol. 63, issue C, 92-101 Abstract: For economic development to succeed in Africa in the next 50years, African agriculture will have to change beyond recognition. Production will have to have increased massively, but also labor productivity, requiring a vast reduction in the proportion of the population engaged in agriculture and a large move out of rural areas. The paper questions how this can be squared with a continuing commitment to smallholder agriculture as the main route for growth in African agriculture and for poverty reduction. We question the evidence base for an exclusive focus on smallholders, and argue for a much more open-minded approach to different modes of production. To allow alternative modes and scale of production to emerge, new institutional and policy frameworks are required. A rush to establish “mega-farms” with government discretionary allocation of vast tracts of land is unlikely to be the answer. Allowing a more dynamic agriculture to develop will require clear institutional frameworks, and not just a narrow focus on smallholders. Keywords: Africa; agriculture; smallholders; commercial agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:63:y:2014:i:c:p:92-101 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.10.001 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
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