Growth and Poverty 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