Writing Africa’s Agriculture-Driven Growth Story

We are creating an agriculture-driven growth story for Africa, drawing on the key principles that underpinned Asia’s growth story.

In the Aftermath of WWII, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China went from being low-income countries with significant infrastructure deficits to economic powerhouses with leading industrial capabilities.

This remarkable development was underpinned by robust agricultural and industrial policies that transformed communities and lifted vast amounts of people from poverty to the the path of long term prosperity.

Maximize production output with smallholder farming

Governments implemented land reforms, splitting large farming lands into plots of land of 3-5 ha, which were redistributed to smallholder growers.

With their newly found land, farmers developed intensive farming systems leveraging all the labour and space available.

Higher production lowered food prices, increased self-sufficiency in food production and farmer disposable income.

Invent Technology For The World

States promoted export-oriented industrialization through technological upgrading and added-value processes by leveraging the spare labour available secured from efficiency gains in farming

Export-Oriented Manufacturing

States leveraged efficiency gains in agriculture to develop large scale, export-oriented manufacturing industries. Spare labor made available from the agricultural sector performed low skills tasks in newly created manufacturing plants.

Imported technology

Newfound agricultural wealth, from increased farmer disposable income, was exported to generate foreign currency and exchanged for foreign technology (i.e. machinery) to support the development of more advanced industries (i.e. car manufacturing).

Protection And subsidies

Market protection and subsidies encouraged exports by protecting nascent industries until they reached maximum efficiency. Governments also used collective bargaining to buy foreign technology, often forcing foreign companies to share know-how or lower price in return for local market access.

Prioritize the banking sector to support development

Governments regulated the financial industry and put incentives in place, such as access to credit, to support the development of agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

Japan and Korea aligned their financial policies to support the development of agricultural and industrial policy objectives through credit and other incentives.

Banks were encouraged to accept low near-term returns on industrial investments in order to build industries capable of producing higher returns in the future.

These policies helped maximize aggregate farm output instead of maximizing returns on cash invested in larger projects.

Banks have the highest returns in less developed countries in Asia (i.e. Philippines) where the manufacturing industry is also the least developed