IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v38y2010i10p1375-1383.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Agriculture in African Development

Author

Listed:
  • Diao, Xinshen
  • Hazell, Peter
  • Thurlow, James

Abstract

Summary Widespread rural poverty in Africa and the success of Asia's Green Revolution suggest that agriculture is a key sector for African development. However, in response to recent skepticism, this paper examines whether the conventional wisdom about agriculture's contribution to the development process can still be applied to Africa today. We first outline the debate between the proponents of agriculture and its skeptics before presenting a series of case studies reflecting the heterogeneity of initial conditions facing low-income African countries. Drawing on economy-wide modeling, these case studies contrast the effectiveness of alternative growth strategies in reducing poverty. The findings indicate that while Africa does face many new challenges unlike those faced by Asian countries, there is little evidence to suggest that these countries can bypass a broad-based agricultural revolution to successfully launch their economic transformations.

Suggested Citation

  • Diao, Xinshen & Hazell, Peter & Thurlow, James, 2010. "The Role of Agriculture in African Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1375-1383, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:10:p:1375-1383
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(10)00100-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diao, Xinshen & Pratt, Alejandro Nin, 2007. "Growth options and poverty reduction in Ethiopia - An economy-wide model analysis," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 205-228, April.
    2. repec:bla:devpol:v:21:y:2003:i:5-6:p:531-553 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Diao, Xinshen & Hazell, Peter B. R. & Resnick, Danielle & Thurlow, James, 2006. "The role of agriculture in development: implications for Sub-Saharan Africa," DSGD discussion papers 29, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Thomas Reardon & C. Peter Timmer & Christopher B. Barrett & Julio Berdegué, 2003. "The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1140-1146.
    5. Barrett, Christopher B. & Reardon, Thomas, 2000. "Asset, Activity, And Income Diversification Among African Agriculturalists: Some Practical Issues," Working Papers 14734, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    6. Dorward, Andrew & Kydd, Jonathan & Morrison, Jamie & Urey, Ian, 2004. "A Policy Agenda for Pro-Poor Agricultural Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 73-89, January.
    7. Haggblade, Steven & Hazell, Peter & Brown, James, 1989. "Farm-nonfarm linkages in rural sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(8), pages 1173-1201, August.
    8. Haggblade, Steven & Hazell, Peter B. R. & Reardon, Thomas, 2002. "Strategies for stimulating poverty-alleviating growth in the rural nonfarm economy in developing countries," EPTD discussion papers 92, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Hazell, P. B. R. & Roell, Ailsa, 1983. "Rural growth linkages: household expenditure patterns in Malaysia and Nigeria," Research reports 41, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Steve Wiggins, 1995. "Change in African farming systems between the mid‐1970s and the mid‐1980s," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(6), pages 807-848, November.
    11. Gillian Hart, 1998. "Regional Linkages in the Era of Liberalization: A Critique of the New Agrarian Optimism," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 27-54, January.
    12. Diao, Xinshen & Fan, Shenggen & Yu, Bingxin & Kanyarukiga, Sam, 2007. "Agricultural growth and investment options for poverty reduction in Rwanda," IFPRI discussion papers 689, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    13. World Bank, 2006. "World Development Indicators 2006," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8151, April.
    14. repec:bla:devpol:v:25:y:2007:i:3:p:275-292 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Caroline Ashley & Simon Maxwell, 2001. "Rethinking Rural Development," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 19(4), pages 395-425, December.
    16. Steven Haggblade & Jeffrey Hammer & Peter Hazell, 1991. "Modeling Agricultural Growth Multipliers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(2), pages 361-374.
    17. Birdsall, Nancy & Ross, David & Sabot, Richard, 1995. "Inequality and Growth Reconsidered: Lessons from East Asia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 9(3), pages 477-508, September.
    18. Ross, D. & Sabot, R. & Birdsall, N., 1995. "Inequality and Growth Reconsidered," Center for Development Economics 142, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    19. Christiaensen, Luc & Demery, Lionel & Kuhl, Jesper, 2006. "The role of agriculture in poverty reduction an empirical perspective," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4013, The World Bank.
    20. repec:bla:devpol:v:24:y:2006:i:3:p:243-277 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Wiggins, Steve, 2000. "Interpreting Changes from the 1970s to the 1990s in African Agriculture Through Village Studies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 631-662, April.
    22. Spencer, Dunstan S. C., 1994. "Infrastructure and technology constraints to agricultural development in the humid and subhumid tropics of Africa:," EPTD discussion papers 3, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    23. James Thurlow & Peter Wobst, 2006. "Not All Growth is Equally Good for the Poor: The Case of Zambia," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(4), pages 603-625, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diao, Xinshen & Hazell, Peter B. R. & Resnick, Danielle & Thurlow, James, 2006. "The role of agriculture in development: implications for Sub-Saharan Africa," DSGD discussion papers 29, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Andersson Djurfeldt, Agnes, 2013. "African Re-Agrarianization? Accumulation or Pro-Poor Agricultural Growth?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 217-231.
    3. Bezemer, Dirk & Headey, Derek, 2008. "Agriculture, Development, and Urban Bias," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1342-1364, August.
    4. Mellor, John W. & Dorosh, Paul A., 2010. "Agriculture and the economic transformation of Ethiopia," ESSP working papers 10, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Paul A. Dorosh & John W. Mellor, 2013. "Why Agriculture Remains a Viable Means of Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Ethiopia," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31(4), pages 419-441, July.
    6. Mellor, John W. & Malik, Sohail J., 2017. "The Impact of Growth in Small Commercial Farm Productivity on Rural Poverty Reduction," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1-10.
    7. Diao, Xinshen & Fan, Shenggen & Headey, Derek & Johnson, Michael & Nin Pratt, Alejandro & Yu, Bingxin, 2008. "Accelerating Africa's food production in response to rising food prices: Impacts and requisite actions," IFPRI discussion papers 825, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Peter Hazell & Colin Poulton & Steve Wiggins & Andrew Dorward, 2006. "The Future of Small Farms : Synthesis Paper," World Bank Publications - Reports 9218, The World Bank Group.
    9. D'Haese, Marijke & Van Huylenbroeck, Guido, 2005. "The rise of supermarkets and changing expenditure patterns of poor rural households case study in the Transkei area, South Africa," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 97-113, February.
    10. Courbois, Claude & Delgado, Christopher L. & Gruhn, Peter & Hazell, P. B. R. & Hojjati, Behjat & Hopkins, Jane & Kelly , Valerie & McKenna, Anna A. & Sil, Jayashree, 1998. "Agricultural growth linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa," Research reports 107, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    11. Poulton, Colin & Dorward, Andrew & Jowett, A. & Peacock, C. & Urey, Ian, 2004. "Priorities and Preconditions for Successful Investment in Smallholder Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa," 2004 Inaugural Symposium, December 6-8, 2004, Nairobi, Kenya 9516, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    12. Lipton, Michael, 2010. "From Policy Aims and Small-farm Characteristics to Farm Science Needs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1399-1412, October.
    13. Junior Davis & Dirk Bezemer, 2005. "Key emerging and conceptual issues in the development of the rural non-farm economy in developing countries and transition economies," Development and Comp Systems 0510017, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Xinshen Diao & Derek Headey & Michael Johnson, 2008. "Toward a green revolution in Africa: what would it achieve, and what would it require?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 39(s1), pages 539-550, November.
    15. Vos, Rob & Frenkel, Roberto & Ocampo, José Antonio & Palma, José Gabriel & Marfán, Manuel & Ros, Jaime & Taylor, Lance & Correa, Nelson & Cimoli, Mario, 2005. "Beyond Reforms: Structural Dynamics and Macroeconomic Vulnerability," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 347, July.
    16. Bianca AVRAM POP & Simona SABOU, 2018. "The Role Of Agriculture In Romanian Development," Business Excellence and Management, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 8(1), pages 5-18, March.
    17. Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "Causality Between Per Capita Real GDP and Income Inequality in the U.S.: Evidence from a Wavelet Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 269-289, January.
    18. Morley, Samuel A., 2000. "The effects of growth and economic reform on income distribution in Latin America," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    19. Westley, Glenn D. & Shaffer, Sherrill, 1999. "Credit union policies and performance in Latin America," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(9), pages 1303-1329, September.
    20. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge & McNab, Robert M., 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1597-1616, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:10:p:1375-1383. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.