Agricultural policy and the organization of production in Sub-Saharan Africa

In spite of differences in development ideology between African countries, there is much similarity in their agricultural development policies, with output growth through increasing commercialization as the main policy objective. The common policy characteristics are identified and their effects on commercialization and organization of production are analyzed in order of the intensity of government intervention. This implies attention for respectively agro-industrial complexes, private estates, commercial peasant farms, various types of schemes, collective production units, and state farms. Although intensification of government intervention usually leads to higher costs and lower levels of production and productivity, the solution to Africa's present agricultural crisis is not so much the choice of one specific type of production unit, but rather the improvement of the general production environment as reflected in adequate producer price levels, reinvestment of creamed-off surpluses and an effective service apparatus, with the benefits of growth distributed over wide segments of the rural population.