Agricultural Economics in Africa: Trends in Theory and Method
Explicit theory about the process of economic development is notoriously scanty and underdeveloped.** Thus this paper will deal as much with emerging challenges to implicit theorizing and neglected areas in explicit theory as with trends in what explicit theory exists. Although the state of economic theory relevant to the agricultural sector of developing countries still leaves much to be desired, there have been some fascinating trends in the last ten years. Over the same period there have been fundamental changes in methodology as well. The central focus of those concerned with the course of economic change in developing economies is consideration of how the rate of economic development can be effectively increased and maintained. Economists working on the agricultural sector are most interested in theory that deals either with the relationship between change in the agricultural sector and change elsewhere in the economy, or with means of accelerating and sustaining development of the agricultural sector itself, of interest not only because the course of events in agriculture affects aggregate development but also because satisfactory progress in agriculture contributes to national goals other than development. Agricultural development affects development in other sectors of the economy in several ways: through provision of goods and services needed elsewhere in the economy and for export; through generation of rural purchasing power which can be a critical component of the stimuli needed to evoke satisfactory rates of development of other sectors; and through generation of savings, investment, and manpower needed elsewhere. Agricultural
The Long-Run Terms of Trade between Agriculture and Manufacturing
There is a widely held opinion that the terms of trade between agriculture and manufacturing industry have been shifting historically to the advantage of manufacturing; and that this shift is what should be expected, both in the past and in the future. The alleged trend is used as an argument for industrialization in underdeveloped countries, or for "balanced development", at the expense of agricultural development.
Gezira: A Story of Development in the Sudan
when describing the system of succession in Ruanda, he neglects to say what was the practice in exercising the choice between one son and another. There is no attempt to compare the dynastic genealogy with those of commoners, or to correlate events common to more than one kingdom and so to build up a single chronological framework for the history of neighbouring states. Instead he confines his argument to the chronology of the last six reigns of the Banyiginya dynasty. Here he reviews some interesting evidence, not least the annual changes of residence of the midand late nineteenth-century monarchs, which make possible a very exact chronology of this period. The evidence for the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations back turns upon the identification of a series of partial eclipses which took place around the middle of the eighteenth century, and Father Kagame concludes that the average length of the last six generations has been either thirty-two or thirty-six years. So far, so good. He then compromises at thirty-three and proceeds to apply this figure to earlier generations, printing a king-list of thirty rulers which starts with Gihanga, A.D. 95992. It is at this stage that some of his readers will take issue with him.