Rivals or Complements? Deborah Fahy Bryceson ODI seminar - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Agriculture & the Rural Non-Farm Sector: Rivals or Complements? Deborah Fahy Bryceson ODI seminar presentation, 4 November 2005

The Debate: agriculture vs. rural non-farm sectors  What is at issue? – welfare – vested interests  Disciplinary perspective? – Agricultural Economics – Rural Sociology – Human Geography  Unit of analysis? – sector – farm production unit – family household production/consumption/cultural unit

African Peasants in Transition  Peasant household characteristics: – FARM - subsistence & commodity production – FAMILY - unit of production – CLASS - position vis-à-vis state and global market – COMMUNITY - remote  African smallholder peasant households – FARM - producing subsistence food & cashcrops – FAMILY • Male heads of households produced the cashcrop • Women produced the foodcrops for HH consumption • Children increasingly attended school – CLASS - Peasant-state/market relations worked during the late 1960s & 1970s as evidenced in Tanzanian peasant export production

State/Market Reorientation, 1980s  Mid & Late 1970s Oil Crisis challenged the competitiveness of peasant export crops – parastatal marketing doomed  Introduction of SAP – economic & political chain reaction leading to SAP – pricing seen as central incentive for raising export crop output – policies to replace state intervention with open markets – elimination of producer and social service subsidies

Peasant HH Restructuring, 1980s  HH need for cash due to declining export crop production & subsidy removal  Diversification of HH production – off-farm activities – non-agricultural activities – experimentation generating ‘winners’ & ‘losers’  Labour force expansion – entry of women and youth as cash earners  Socio-political repercussions – economic autonomy of women and youth – declining coherence of household production units – increased economic differentiation in countryside

Economic Liberalization, 1990s  Effect on peasant HH production – export crop production stagnant or declining per capita – geographical differentiation - location of HH vis-à-vis non-farm opportunities – growth of urban areas & non-agricultural activities as stimulus to agriculture (not classic industrialization model)  Striking differences in country trajectories: Tanzania vs. Malawi

Tanzanian Depeasantization Path  Rural income diversification very widespread  Peasant income diversification has been supported by national economic diversification – mining – tourism – steady urbanization

Malawi Depeasantization Path  Peasant income diversification thwarted by: – decline of male labourers’ remittances – lack of rural purchasing power – agricultural involution - high population density, low crop yields & reliance on mono-cropping – relatively low level of urbanization (13.5%)  Outcome: rampant rural poverty and resort to casual wage labour market entwined in vicious cycle of famine and HIV infection

Current rural policies  Economic liberalization/poverty alleviation – ambiguous policies pulling in opposing directions – poverty alleviation redresses SAP’s impact  Economic liberalization – affirms households’ diversification process – arrests decline in peasant agricultural exports but not on a rural per capita basis  Rural producers highly market responsive – thriving urban market for food production – some non-farm activities have profound welfare and rural lifestyle implications in the 21st century

Agriculture vs. Non-Farm - whose dilemma?  Tanzania can no longer be considered a primarily agrarian country & Malawi is still agrarian but with dismal prospects  Ag vs. Non-Farm - not an issue for rural diversifiers who do both – retention of a subsistence fallback – responsive to best economic returns on commercial production - ag or non-farm – seeking income on more individualized basis than before causing loss in rural peasant HH coherence – small-scale rural producers are now more flexible in Tanzania and more desperate in Malawi

Agriculture vs. Non-Farm - policy implications  Defensiveness of agricultural specialists re. deagrarianization/depeasantization is misplaced – re-evaluate existing assumptions and models – need to come to grips with the producers, their changing production units, activities & lifestyles

Agriculture vs. Non-Farm - Real or Postulated Complementarity?  Peasant agricultural export commodity prospects are extremely unpromising  Nature of linkages between agriculture & non-farm within households changing  Households retain a firm commitment to food self-provisioning  National investment in commercial smallholder food production is vital