There are still a number of competing views about the relevance of agriculture in the debate on growth and development in Africa. At a basic level, there is a serious challenge: with a growing population, and persistent malnutrition in the developing world, a more than doubling of world production is required by 2050. For some this leads to a policy discourse of doom for the poorest countries in the world: with persistently low yields, and the threat of global warming, population growth and its resulting land pressure will simply make any economic progress there impossible. Currently, many of these countries are agricultural-based, but nevertheless fail to provide sufficient food and nutrition for their populations.
The World Development Report (WDR) 2008 team echoed this view but with a positive agenda: investing in agriculture is a necessary condition for development in the poorest countries. At a global level, this must be correct, as current high food prices may well push millions of (especially Asian) recent escapees from poverty back under the poverty line, putting pressure on a model of growth based on investment in relatively cheap manufacturing jobs. The emergence of biofuels as a realistic alternative for fossil fuels adds further pressure, and even if they are currently largely fuelled by trade distortions in the US and Europe, their role is likely to grow in the long-run. The WDR 2008 argued that for countries that are currently agricultural-based (i.e. most of the poorest countries in the world), agricultural progress, including via a "green revolution for Africa", are then necessary for any meaningful growth.
The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), the International Growth Center, and the US National Science Foundation jointly will sponsor a workshop devoted to research on the economics of agriculture in Africa. In particular how can agricultural productivity be improved, rural poverty be reduced, and productive interactions between agriculture and the rest of the economy be generated and strengthened?
A priority focus for this conference will be on the economics of technological innovation and adoption. Despite much study, it remains striking that, despite the available off-the-shelf technology, yields and yield growth in Africa continue to lag behind the rest of the world, while adoption of new technologies is slow. A study of the interaction of different existing market failures (including in credit, insurance) as well as the behavioural foundations of technology adoption (the role risk and ambiguity, and the process learning) will remain crucial, as well as its institutional foundations, such as the nature of land rights and other constraints on accumulation. There are several innovations that could lead to increases in agricultural growth and will be the focus of research under this theme. The first would be a move into higher-value, or cash, crops - e.g., from maize/sorghum/basic staple or cereal crops into vegetables/horticulture (e.g. French beans, snow peas). Such crops are often export crops. The second is changes in physical inputs - in particular water/irrigation, but also fertilizer, seed, pesticides, etc. (see above). For example, in Kenya only 6% of plots use any irrigation at all (most plots are rain fed). Third are changes in the organization of production and land ownership - from small, uncoordinated single-family holdings to larger farms, or cooperatives of small farms. Fourth is the opening up and expansion of domestic and foreign markets for the outputs of agriculture, either through improvements in road and air networks and other infrastructure, or through the development of links between producers and traders (contract farming mentioned above). Fifth is the reduction of financial market imperfections, including opportunities for saving and improvements in formal insurance as well as improved access to credit markets. Sixth is the more rapid commercialization of agriculture. While there are unlikely to be relevant increasing returns to scale in production, there are likely to be increasing returns in marketing, storage, transport, input provision, retailing (supermarkets), etc.
The organizing theme of the collaboration is to build relationships for collaborative research on agriculture in Africa. This is why the participants will remain for the following three days of the associated AERC conference, to build in time and space for developing the research collaborations. The discussants from the US will be paired with likely papers from Africa-based researchers based on the declared interests in potential joint work by both parties. Further, early career scientists from the US will be participating in the conference.
The Social, Behavioral, and Economics Directorate's Social and Economic Sciences Division and by the Office of International Science and Engineering's Africa, Near East and South Asia program are providing funding for this award.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the International Growth Center (IGC) funded a workshop in collaboration with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in Mombasa, Kenya over 3?4 December, 2010. The first day's technical session was devoted to providing information on frontier methods of research on agriculture and development. The topics included: understanding the importance of spatial correlations in agricultural data; how to estimate returns to new agricultural technologies; the importance of spillovers of agriculture into non?agriculture; and understanding how to encourage innovation in agriculture. These presentations were followed by short PhD student presentations ? six students from Harvard, MIT and Yale each gave a short ten minute presentation on their research interests. This was a great way for the students to present very early stage ideas and get feedback from researchers on the ground who have an immense amount of local knowledge. The final few hours of the Technical Session were designed as a group activity. Everyone was asked to write down what they thought was the most important outstanding research or policy question in agriculture in Africa. The two organizers of the Technical Session then combined all these responses into five main questions. The attendees were then split into groups of four and each group was allocated one of the five questions to brainstorm and come up with a way of answering it, what data would they need, how the question could be approached and how aconvincing analysis performed to answer the question. The groups then presented their answers. This may have been one of the most fruitful parts of Technical Session in terms of collaboration ? the IGC researchers and the PhD students were spread through the groups as were any other researchers who were from the same organization. These discussions have led to ongoing collaborations between US and Africa-based researchers. The second day consisted of formal discussions of research by scholars from the US, Zimbabwe, Paris, Cameroon and Nigeria. The sessions were on agriculture and growth, technology adoption, and the organization of agriculture. Overall, the Workshop brought together some exciting new papers on the forefront of research on agriculture in Africa, a number of which were presented by local African researchers. It also clearly illustrated the strengths of the researchers on the ground in Africa. Probably the most successful part of the Workshop was built into its design ? there was a lot of time allowed for comments on the papers as well as for interactions between the various researchers at the Workshop. The papers at the Workshop highlighted the fact that an increasing number of researchers based in Africa collect their own primary data to understand agricultural issues in Africa. This easily led to discussions of not just how to improve the papers presented, but also what other important, policy relevant research questions could be answered.One important aim of this Workshop was to create an environment that would encourage collaborations between researchers based in Africa and those outside interested in African agriculture. That was certainly accomplished across the course of the two days. In fact, the organizers have received emails from at least two researchers not based in Africa who arehoping to be able to work with local researchers they met and interacted with during the course of the two days.Finally, it should be noted that this was the first NSF funded Workshop related to economics to be held in Africa. Not only is it striking that it has taken this long for there to be such a conference, but given how successful this was, it seems that there should be an attempt to make this a more regular event.
