Agricultural Commercialization And Government Policy In Africa

Book excerpt: First published in 1987. The object of this book is to show the nature and the constraints of the commercialization of agriculture in one of the world's major problem areas, Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural commercialization started here centuries ago, albeit in small, pockets. It expanded sharply during the colonial period when the sub-continent became integrated into the world's economy. After independence the nature of this integration did not structurally change and the basic characteristics o agricultural commercialization remained unaltered. After an analysis of this process during the colonial period, the study focuses on post-colonial government policies and on spatial variation in the commercialization of Africa's agriculture. Differences in environmental and socio-economic conditions, production performance and government policy are dealt with on two geographical scales: in the fist at the level of macro-regions and individual countries, and the second, by means of case studies at the regional, village and project level. Thee field-work based studies each centre on a specific aspect of commercialization process in a wide variety of countries, viz Swaziland, Sudan, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Kenya. The final part of the book relates the subject of commercialization and rural development to Africa's present agricultural crisis.