Africa’s missed agricultural revolution: a quantitative study of the policy options

Abstract

Despite the widespread diffusion of productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies the world over, agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa has typically stagnated. This paper develops a quantitative model in order to shed light on the sources of low labor productivity in African agriculture. The model provides a vehicle for understanding the mechanisms leading to low agricultural labor productivity, in particular, how the interactions between factor endowments, government investment and technology adoption may have culminated in agricultural stagnation. I calibrate the model to data for four Sub-Saharan African economies, and use this calibrated model to provide insight into policy aimed at increasing agricultural productivity in these four countries. Policies aimed at improving rural infrastructure or productivity in the non-agricultural sectors, or allowing for land transferability, would be most effective for increasing agricultural labor productivity, and would further bring increases in household welfare for each of the countries I calibrate to.

The impact of domestic and foreign R&D on agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa

“…Additionally, it is plausible that the local conditions (e.g. weather conditions, level of development) and other institutional bottlenecks may inhibit the full absorption of foreign innovation efforts (see Aitken et al, 1999;Johnson and Evenson, 2000;O'Gorman, 2015). This potentially raises the question of whether it might be more beneficial to focus on domesticallydriven innovation efforts, complemented by foreign R&D spillovers (D'Agostino and Santangelo, 2012).…”

“…Given the non-excludability nature of knowledge, it is plausible for knowledge spillovers to occur across national boundaries, thereby enabling countries to access foreign knowledge stocks from other countries in addition to its own knowledge stock. 2 However, there is a counter argument that the SSA region is better off focusing on domestic innovation efforts since it suffers from a relative dearth of systems and institutions required to facilitate the transfer of foreign technology (Johnson and Evenson, 2000;O'Gorman, 2015). Consequently, we believe that a comprehensive scorecard on the contributions of R&D investments to agricultural productivity could prove to be a valuable tool for guiding innovation policy in the SSA region (Spielman et al, 2009).…”

Cropping systems diversification, improved seed, manure and inorganic fertilizer adoption by maize producers of eastern Ethiopia

“…Despite all those benefits, Africa has lagged behind other developing regions in terms of each indicator of technology adoption (O'Gorman 2015). Particularly, the adoption of agricultural technologies in SSA remains very low (Duflo et al 2011;Jayne and Rashid 2013).…”

Global volatility of public agricultural R&D expenditure

“…This suggests that if current patterns of public agricultural R&D prevail, regional disparities in agricultural productivity are likely to exacerbate. Moreover, the geoclimatic specificity of agriculture ( Alston, 2002 ) and institutional bottlenecks ( Evenson, 2000 ; O'Gorman, 2015 ), may inhibit the absorption of foreign agricultural R&D innovation in the domestic context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, it is imperative that Sub-Saharan Africa increase its public agricultural R&D spending and also ensure that it is stable.…”