Growth and Poverty Mailing List Archive

["Dick Tinsley" <<address removed>>]

I have been requested to transfer to the science and technology group plus
the economic opportunity group so I will say farewell to this group.  This
is ok as this group appears mostly dealing with the macro economic issues
and I am very much a micro farm level person.

However, it departing I would like to make a couple comments.

1. I would like to join some others and voice my preference for a single
group as the most effective and convenient means of handling the forum. If
you are actually monitoring several themes it becomes very easy to starting
replying to the wrong group and really generate some major confusion. As it
is I think the theme differentiation is for the convenience of the
moderators, when the forum should be organized for the convenience of the
participants.  It reminds me of a farm survey I observed in which the
interviewers were all seating in nice lounge chairs while the farmers were
setting on hard benches, rocks or the ground.

2. I notice the concern for "employment intensive" agriculture.  As I
understand this it would imply employment is more important then the
productivity of employment.  I would then contend that this would lead to
entrapped poverty.  As I understand economic well-being has more to do with
the productivity of employment than the fact of employment.  I am reminded
of the little fellow in Bangledesh with his small hammer breaking up brinks
for road construction.  He had employment but not much productivity and thus
would never get away from entrapped poverty.

3. Also, there seems to be some concern for encouraging people to leave
agriculture for alternative opportunities.  Isn't this normal?  If I recall
from my basic class in economic development, in the absence of major foreign
investment isn't a necessary condition of industrialization or alternative
economic opportunity a surplus in the agriculture sector.  This is needed to
both create labor pool and free capital for alternative opportunities.
Failure to do so would lead to the export of most goods in order to import
the food needed.

I believe the Agriculture remains "mankind's life support system" and
remains the most essential economic sector.

4. Finally, the weekly summary on cooperatives has me somewhat out of
context.  When I was referring to overhead costs I was solely concerned with
reoccurring costs and not start up cost.  Start up costs are a reasonable
donor contribution, but the reoccurring costs are what determine the long
term sustainability of the cooperatives or other initiative.

Enjoy the rest of your discussion.

Dick Tinsley



=============================================================
To send a reply to this message that goes to all list members,
make sure that you send your reply to <address removed>

To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to "<address removed>", with the 
message body:

unsubscribe growth-and-poverty <your-email-address>