Agriculture and Agricultural Research Priorities

Views about whether agricultural growth plays or can play a key role in the economic development of less-developed countries have varied considerably. Particularly, during the 1950s and into the 1960s, the dominant view in the Western World was as expressed by Hollis B. Chenery that ‘industrialisation is the main hope of most poor countries trying to increase their levels of income’ (Chenery, 1955). Models developed, for example, by A.W. Lewis (1954) propagated the view that returns to investment in agriculture were low or even negative, and that any surplus which might be generated in agriculture would soon be dissipated by population increases in rural communities. This led to the policy suggestion that capital formation should be directed towards industrialisation and urbanisation rather than towards agriculture. The net benefit of such a policy was seen to be the generation of a larger level of surplus or savings to promote capital accumulation and slower rates of population increase given that urban populations tend to increase, at a slower rate than rural populations. Writers such as W.W. Rostow (1956, 1960) speculated that such policies could eventually result in LDCs (less developed countries) embarking on sustained economic growth.