|
|||||||||
| |
|||||||||
Dear Colleagues, I have been following the discussion's of various of the groups and am surprised at the sparse attention to the lack of competitiveness of tropical agriculture. We have heard a lot about subsidies that make it difficult for the rural poor to make a decent living, however, we have not seen much about their ability to compete per se. If one looks back 50 years one finds that many tropical crops were able to compete with crops from the developed world. Two examples can illustrate this fact. Fifty years ago sugar yields per ha from cane were far greater than those from beet, but now several European countries are at levels equal to or better than many cane sugar producers. The yield of corn in the USA (converted to starch equivalents) just after the second world war was similar to that from cassava in Brazil, then the largest producer of cassava in the world. Nowadays corn yields are double those from cassava. Why has this change occurred? Some may say that it's due to the difficulties of producing in the tropics, however this does not seem to be the case. Firstly the productivity of developed country agriculture has increased greatly making it more competitive, rather than losses in productivity in tropical agriculture. Secondly in some countries, where there has been a reasonable R&D investment as in such cases as oil palm, sugarcane and soya there have been good increases in productivity and these products are able to compete with developed country products. This suggests that agriculture in the developing countries has lost its competitive edge due to a long term lack of investment in R&D. This can only be recovered by long term investment in crop research. Catch up would be facilitated by the availability of modern research technology: for example it is now much easier to diagnose a virus problem with molecular techniques than it was even ten years ago. If these arguments are accepted then one possibility for DFID is to select one or two crops or crop areas and to go to town modernizing those crops so that they can become truly competitive. The scientific knowledge and technical ability of UK scientists, which have already been mentioned in these discussions, could be combined with local talent to turn uncompetitive losers into winners on the world scene. DFID would be able to attach its name to these crops and show impact in them. This idea does however raise a political question. Would the UK accept cheap Thai starch without slapping on heavy tariffs??? Maybe one would have to look for products which would not compete directly with local production. James Cock
Please visit dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org.