This paper provides a nuanced perspective on debates about the potential for Africa's smallholder agriculture to stimulate growth and alleviate poverty in an increasingly integrated world. In particular, the paper synthesizes both the traditional theoretical literature on agriculture's role in the development process and discusses more recent literature that remains skeptical about agriculture's development potential for Africa. In order to examine in greater detail the relevance for Africa of both the "old" and "new" literatures on agriculture, the paper provides a typology of African countries based on their stage of development, agricultural conditions, natural resources, and geographic location. This typology shows that agriculture's growth and poverty-reduction potential varies substantially across the continent. Moreover, the typology provides the framework for in-depth analysis of agriculture and growth-poverty linkages in five countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia) using economy-wide, macro-micro linkage models.
The paper shows that despite recent skepticism, agricultural growth is still important for most low-income African countries. The country level analyses emphasize that agriculture is especially important for poverty reduction. In particular, broad-based agricultural growth in the staple food sectors reduces poverty more than growth driven by agricultural exports, which often bypasses small farms.
More broadly, the paper demonstrates that conventional theory on the role of agriculture in the early stage of development remains relevant to Africa. While the continent does face new and different challenges than those encountered by Asian and Latin American countries during their successful transformations, most African countries cannot significantly reduce poverty, increase per capita incomes, and transform into modern economies without focusing on agricultural development.
Full Discussion Paper
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