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The Political Uses of Agricultural Markets in Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

James R. Pletcher
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IT is widely acknowledged that the origins of Africa's hunger crisis lie only partly in weather patterns. A growing number of studies have emphasised the rôle which the state plays in creating a policy environment which either undermines or promotes commercial agriculture.1 Much of the fault for the latter's poor performance in many areas of the continent is assigned to short-sighted government policies of excessive intervention in agricultural markets. The cardinal sins are considered to be price controls, food subsidies, and state-run marketing boards. As the external debt of African states grows, foreign lenders and aid donors impose economic reforms deemed necessary to address the long-run structural problems. The austerity packages of the International Monetary Fund, for example, aim to reduce demand in the borrowing country by cutting government spending on subsidies, while the World Bank focuses on stimulating agricultural production through a mixture of targeted investments and advice on how to change the pricing and tax structure so as to improve incentives for farmers.2

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 603 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Page 603 note 1 For example, Lofchie, Michael F., ‘Political and Economic Origins of African Hunger’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 13, 4, 12 1975, pp. 551–67;Google ScholarErgas, Zaki, ‘The State and Economic Deterioration: the Tanzanian case’, in The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (London), 20, 1982, pp. 286–308;Google Scholarde Wilde, John, Agriculture, Marketing and Politics (London), 20, 1982, pp. 286–308;Google Scholarde Wilde, John, Agriculture, Marketing and Pricing in Sub-Saharan Africa (Los Angeles, 1984);Google ScholarBates, Robert and Lofchie, Michael F. (eds.), Agricultural Development in Africa: issues of public policy (New York, 1980);Google Scholar World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: an agenda for action (Washington D.C., 1981);Google ScholarHyden, Goran, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: underdevelopment and an uncaptured peasantry (London, LosAngeles, and Berkeley, 1980);Google Scholar and Bates, Robert, Markets and States in Tropical Africa: the political basis of agricultural policies (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1981).Google Scholar

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Page 604 note 1 Bates, op. cit. pp. 38–9; World Bank, op. cit. pp. 59–68; and Ergas, loc. cit. p. 292.

Page 604 note 2 Hecht, Robert M., ‘The Ivory Coast Economic “Miracle”: what benefits for peasant farmers?’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21, 1, 03 1983, pp. 25–53, points out, however, that these comparisons may not be the most relevant if the concern is simply to increase overall output.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 605 note 1 Jackson, Henry, ‘The African Crisis: drought and debt’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), 63, 1985, pp. 1086–7.Google Scholar

Page 605 note 2 Apart from the publications already cited on p. 1, see Bates, Robert, Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa (Cambridge, 1983),Google ScholarRural Responses to Industrialization (New Haven, 1976),Google Scholar‘Some Conventional Orthodoxies in the Study of Agrarian Change’, in World Politics (Princeton), 36, 2, 01 1984, pp. 234–54,Google Scholar ‘The Commercialization of Agriculture and the Rise of Rural Political Protest in Black Africa’, in Hopkins, Raymond, Puchala, Donald, and Talbot, Ross (eds.), Food, Politics, and Agricultural Development (Boulder, 1979),Google Scholar and with Rogerson, William, ‘Agriculture in Development: a coalitional analysis’, in Public Choice (The Hague), 35, 1980, pp. 513–27.Google Scholar

Page 605 note 3 Lofchie, loc. cit.; Ergas, loc. cit.; Jones, David B., ‘State Structures in New Nations: the case of primary agricultural marketing in Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 20, 4, 12 1982, pp. 553–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 607 note 1 See, especially, Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa, Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa, and Bates and Rogerson, loc. cit.

Page 607 note 2 Hyden, op. cit. pp. 9–37.

Page 609 note 1 Rasmussen, Thomas, ‘The Popular Basis of Anti-Colonial Protest’, in Tordoff, William (ed.), Politics in Zambia (Manchester, 1974), pp. 40–61.Google Scholar

Page 609 note 2 See Elliott, Charles, ‘Equity and Growth: an unresolved conflict in Zambian rural development policy’, in Ghai, Dharam and Radwan, Samir (eds.), Agrarian Policies and Rural Poverty in Africa (Geneva, 1983), pp. 155–89.Google Scholar

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Page 611 note 1 Elliott, loc. cit. p. 170.

Page 611 note 2 Hybrid maize cannot be stored in traditional granaries for longer than a few months.

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Page 611 note 4 The ‘line of rail’ refers to the areas close to the major north-south railway which bisects Zambia, and along which the major cities, the most productive farmland, and the major mineral deposits are located.

Page 611 note 5 Ocran, op. cit. pp. 152–67.

Page 612 note 1 Fry, James, ‘Rural–Urban Terms of Trade, 1960–73: a note’, in African Social Research (Lusaka), 19, 1975, pp. 730–8, and Employment and Income Distribution in the African Economy, pp. 74–5.Google Scholar

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Page 614 note 2 Fry, Employment and Income Distribution in the African Economy, pp. 122–3, 125, and 142.

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Page 615 note 1 For the most complete treatment, see Scott, Ian, ‘Party Politics in Zambia’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1976.Google Scholar

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Page 616 note 3 Gertzel, Baylies, and Szeftel (eds.), op. cit. pp. 11 and 25, incl. fn. 52.

Page 616 note 4 Southall, ‘Class Formation and Government Policy in the 1970's’, and Szeftel, Morris, ‘Political Graft and the Spoils System in Zambia — the State as a Resource in Itself’, in Review of African Political Economy, 24, 1982, pp. 4–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar