Economic Opportunity Mailing List Archive

["Dorward, Andrew R" <<address removed>>]

Dear All

With regard to Dick's comments about mechanisation and farmer
organisations, Paul's (and other's) point that 'no one size fits all' is
critically important.  We need to have (at least) a two-dimensional view
of this variation, that allows for differences (between countries / areas
/ communities / livelihoods) in (a) basic conditions  such as in (natural)
resource endowments, access, culture, etc and (b) economic development 
stages. This last point is very important but easy to overlook (see
Dorward et al  2004 for a characterisation of this and its relevance to
these issues). 

On Dick's first email, the point about labour constraints and
technologists and economists analytical approaches is well taken - but is
land preparation and planting the critical timing constraint, or weeding?
Following Dick's argument, should this be addressed by mechanisation or
herbicides? And how do these labour constraints compare with capital
constraints - they are very closely related as poorer households may have
to divert labour from their own farming in order to earn food working for
others? And if mechanisation and/or herbicides reduce the demand for
labour, how will this affect wage rates and hence the fundamental income
and survival source for poorer households? These are very specific
questions which need careful examination in different situations (relating
to both the dimensions of variation suggested above). 

As regards farmer organisations, two points. First I don't think Christie
was suggesting that farmer organisations should be involved all the way to
the consumer - their role is to achieve economies of scale and other
transaction cost reductions for small scale farms (in input, output and
financial transactions) while their small scale allows more equitable
access / incomes and efficient labour and land utilisation (see Michael
Lipton's comments on economies of scale). Secondly, and more
fundamentally, we cannot look at recent declines in the UK and US
cooperative systems and draw conclusions about the inappropriateness of
farmer organisations for poor rural areas elsewhere in the world. We need
to recognise different roles and benefits  of these organisational forms
at different stages of development, when small farms are important and
face major difficulties in participating in markets. Farmer organisations
played a critical role in the development of agriculture in Europe (and I
guess the US too, as they have now declined). Their record in developing
countries has been very mixed, but there have been and are major successes
to learn from.  

 All the best

 Andrew



Reference:  Dorward, A. R., J. G. Kydd, J. A. Morrison and I. Urey (2004).
"A Policy Agenda for Pro-Poor Agricultural Growth." World Development
32(1): 73-89.



Andrew Dorward, Director, Centre for Development and Poverty Reduction,
Wye Campus, Imperial College London.     www.wye.ic.ac.uk/AEBM/AgEcon/ADU


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