Beyond the boundary of economics

Grain production
He makes broad comparisons in agricultural performances between East Asia and Africa, to tell us that the differences in the two regions are deeply rooted in traditional social structures and norms in rural communities. But before that, he confirms the contrasting agricultural growth performances between Asia and Africa. Between 1963 and 2000, in terms of total grain output, East Asia's growth of 3 per cent per annum was the fastest. Empirical evidences, however, appear to show that the rate was not faster than the growths in South Asia and Latin America. But when placed on a productivity scale, East Asia's performance puts up a different picture. For example, the grain output per capita in East and Southeast Asia increased at an average rate of 1.2 per cent during this period -- double the pace of South Asia and Latin America. Africa, on the other hand, recorded a decline of 0.4 per cent during the same period. It is being well argued that, among other factors, a deceleration in the population growth rate in East Asia (and acceleration in Africa) caused its victory in the race of food supply over population.

Productivity matters
Population aside, differences in the speeds of increase in land productivity also impinged important implications as far as result of the race is concerned. Yujiro Hayami's data tend to show that land productivity (grain yield per hectare) in both East and South Asia increased at the rate of about 2 per cent per year. This implies that as much as two thirds of total output growth in Asia owe to increase in land productivity while the rest came from expansion in area under cultivation. In fact in a land scarce and population abundant country like Bangladesh, increased land productivity should continue to be the key concern. Any way, the land productivity in Africa during the same time grew at 1 per cent per year implying, perhaps, that a less than one third of the increase in per hectare yield emanated from increased land productivity. The contrasts clearly confirms that Asia could win over its woes and emerge as a leader by means of adopting innovative agricultural practices -- say under the aegis of green revolution -- while Africa languished in the absence of such modern agricultural practices.

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Africa failed to embrace land-saving production system "despite the fact that this region's resource endowments have moved from the land-abundant to the land-scarce regime. For several hundred years before the early 20th century, the population growth rates in Africa were much lower than in Asia. As a result, population density in Africa, especially East Africa, has traditionally been much lower than Asia, so that shifting cultivation and nomadic grazing have commonly been practiced. Much of farm land has remained in communal possession of tribes and, therefore, the development of private property rights as a means of facilitating long-term investments in land infrastructure has lagged." Hayami argues that the lag in the shift to sedentary agriculture underlies the lag in investment in basic infrastructure such as roads and irrigation system. Underdeveloped infrastructure militated against the adoption of a green revolution of Indian type that depended heavily on irrigation and supply of modern chemical inputs.

Exploiting agriculture
According to Yujiro Hayami, both Asia and Africa were engaged in exploitation of agriculture through state interventions in procurement and marketing, over valued exchange rate, export tax on agricultural commodities etc.

For Africa, however, government failures surpassed market failures. In Asia, the exploitation of agriculture also witnessed substantial investments in agricultural research as well as for roads and electricity for increasing agricultural production. In Africa, in contrast, politicians attempted to compensate for exploitation by distributing subsidised credits and inputs to particular rural elites instead of providing public goods. "The selective distribution of such private goods to specific rural elites was more advantageous for politicians for maximising the probability of keeping office than the provision of public goods which benefit a large number of farmers indiscriminately.

Underlying the strategy appears to be absence of social norms like in village communities in Asia, especially North-East Asia, to identify as legitimate patrons those who provide irrigation and other infrastructure necessary for villagers' survival. Thus the social norm has not yet been established in Africa to identify the supply of land infrastructure as rulers' responsibility, even though its importance has been rising rapidly in recent years.

Dolls and development
In Africa, the egalitarian redistributive system aimed at guaranteeing subsistence of community members under mobile production system during the land abundant regime has been working as barrier to the technological innovation and capital accumulation needed to shift to sedentary land saving system under rapidly rising land scarcity. On the other hand, Asia has been advantaged by the patron-client reciprocity norm moulded under traditional land scarcity that tolerates wealth accumulation by industrious and innovative villagers so long as they behave as legitimate patrons in guaranteeing subsistence poor clients. Under this system, the patrons have been able to accumulate individual wealth, while they able taken leadership in building community-level infrastructure and, also, in lobbying for government's provisions for infrastructure.

Hayami-hypothesis
This hypothesis, if valid, implies that, to be effective in furthering agricultural growth, Asian governments as well as international aid agencies must try to incorporate into their development programme the incentive mechanisms implicit in patron-client relationship within village as well as between village leaders and local government officials so as to maximise municipal level collective actions for the supply of local public goods. It is however important to guard against the danger of patron-client relationship turning to be basis of collusion for rent seeking activities, not only at the local level but also at the national level as demonstrated by the failures of President Marcos and Suharto.

To be Asian
The tide over the agricultural backwardness in Africa and to rise to the level of Asia so to say, Africa needs to strengthen agricultural research, extension and training activities so that farmers would be able to grasp the benefits of land-saving production system. The traditional norms in rural communities of Africa, although slow to change, need to alter to the call of the crisis. Beyond the boundary of economics lie sociology and anthropology to know about African agricultural pale performances.

Abdul Bayes is a Proefssor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.