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More of a niche market in a very wealthy developed market.
To the contrary. Small farmers are as vital to feeding people as any other group is. Who do you think grows the bulk of the food that Indians eat. How much large scale farming exists in much of northern Europe where land is scarce and high priced?
Grains might be best grown on mega farms but other crops less so. Show me a large scale plantation growing cabbage and I bet its riddled with insects. Large swathes of a single crop with minimal rotation provides ideal conditions for pests and plant diseases.
[quote=EdwardA;51713603]People need to understand Africa is responsible for about 2% of global trade. .[/QUOTE
Europe is already tired of Africans pouring through their borders in the millions. African cities have now reached bursting point as they don't generate levels of economic activity which sustain the large numbers which exist.
So please desist from any thought that plowing arid areas of Niger and forcing Nigeriens to flock to Lagos, is going to benefit that nation. Nigeria will simply send them back. They cannot even absorb their own rural migrants.
Its is archaic thinking to believe that capital intensive agro-industrial enterprises will work in regions where there are severe water deficits. This is what most of Africa is.
Ghana's economy depends a lot on oil and gas exports. Hence it is vulnerable just like Angola's.
Ethiopia is a different story, though. Much more solid. But there are internal conflicts with certain ethnic groups, which can easily lead to yet another African civil war.
Not sure how Ethiopia, heavily coffee dependent, is more solid than Ghana. Ghana has a more advanced and diverse economy when compared to Ethiopia. It is wealthier and I bet it has less income inequality. Its people are healthier and more educated. Its economy and export base is also more diverse. It even sells power to neighboring countries.
Ghana is one of the more developed sub Saharan countries. Ethiopia has only begin to catch up within the past decade. Much of the country remains a semi failed state and the presence of Ethiopians among the ranks of international refugees is evidence of it.
The flower boom in Kenya is also problematic. There was a documentary on that the other day.
In the long run, Africa needs to catch up in terms of technology and science. Unfortunately that is also where they lag behind the most. And as long as that has not changed (a change also slowed down or even prevented by the patent mania in the West; developing countries should ignore such laws and illegally copy stuff initially, else there is no catching up anymore), agriculture can be a major pillar of both the economy and society.
I don't agree at all that small-scale farming has no future and that we need industrial farming with all the problems it causes. Interesting read: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/colin-..._11671490.html
Africa needs to feed itself. "Selling" millions of acres to Asian companies to engage in capital intensive industrial agriculture, displacing local rural communities isn't going to solve the problem. Upgrading the skills and technologies used by farmers, and assisting them to acquire funding and improved access to markets will be the solution.
While subsistence farming, using primitive techniques is not going to provide the growth that Africa requires to feed itself and to grow its exports, I don't know that huge machines plowing the arid soils of Niger, engaged in massive use fertilizer and depleting already scarce water supplies as they engage in massive irrigation is going to solve that impoverished nation's problems.
People also need to remember that unless the lives of the people improve it doesn't matter what the GDP per capita is. Angola is a classic example of this. Enlightened capitalism can incorporate these models.
Ghana's economy depends a lot on oil and gas exports. Hence it is vulnerable just like Angola's.
Ethiopia is a different story, though. Much more solid. But there are internal conflicts with certain ethnic groups, which can easily lead to yet another African civil war.
Being that much of Europe and Japan have little to no gas or oil resources, Ghana is safe. Oh, oil prices will rise and fall, but meanwhile OIL and GAS use aren't going anywhere at all.
I live in Barcelona, and if you say there's no ethnic conflict in Spain (Catalonia) or in Europe (Scotland, among other places) then you are painting a false picture of Europe. Yet you don't use ethnic conflict to disparage European development.
Ethiopia is the second growing economy in the world, period and to dig up reasons to take away from that shows racism. For that matter what you said about Ghana is also racist. What, Black countries can't show economic development and have to go to the stone age to please you?
It doesn't matter what you agree or don't agree with. Factually, small scale farming has no future. Spain, though of course it has better agriculture than cold Northern Europe, still has a lot of tropical fruits it imports like bananas. I don't think these are grown on small farms. In fact the banana industry has always grown on large, corporate plantations. Ditto other tropical foods.
People need to understand Africa is responsible for about 2% of global trade. .[/QUOTE
Europe is already tired of Africans pouring through their borders in the millions. African cities have now reached bursting point as they don't generate levels of economic activity which sustain the large numbers which exist.
So please desist from any thought that plowing arid areas of Niger and forcing Nigeriens to flock to Lagos, is going to benefit that nation. Nigeria will simply send them back. They cannot even absorb their own rural migrants.
Its is archaic thinking to believe that capital intensive agro-industrial enterprises will work in regions where there are severe water deficits. This is what most of Africa is.
Before the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria was a big cash crop exporter and was able to feed itself.
Problem was that the "Dutch disease" economic effect of the petroleum boom sector led the country to underinvest or disinvest in their agricultural sector (through land, labor and capital inputs). So when the oil busts came, it left Nigeria in dire straits - they had a big foreign exchange debt to pay AND they had to import their food.
Enlightened capitalists sometimes do think that way. There is no charity here. Who do you think that small and mid sized farmers in much of the world sell to.
But I guess you think that they should toss people off lands and then be forced to abandon their investments when some of these people become terrorists and attack them. Boko Haram emerged from issues which Nigerian elites chose to ignore and now we see the results. Niger is a very vulnerable place and Islamists are already active there, so why assist in their attempts to recruit?
Ultimately the Nigerian military will kill off Boko Haram. No big deal or threat. If your fame to claim is kidnapping school girls you've shown just how weak you are.
Haiti's demise had nothing to do with the fact that they are small scale farmers. In fact in much of the rest of the Caribbean many of these types of farmers are doing perfectly well. Haiti used to export sugar from plantations, but no longer do so either. And I am talking about up to not that long ago. In fact in much of the Caribbean its the large scale agriculture which is no longer competitive.
The Caribbean is not the world's food basket, either.
Of course, can you evidence that most of the agriculture from the Caribbean is small scale? Back up this assertion.
Africa needs to feed itself. "Selling" millions of acres to Asian companies to engage in capital intensive industrial agriculture, displacing local rural communities isn't going to solve the problem. Upgrading the skills and technologies used by farmers, and assisting them to acquire funding and improved access to markets will be the solution.
While subsistence farming, using primitive techniques is not going to provide the growth that Africa requires to feed itself and to grow its exports, I don't know that huge machines plowing the arid soils of Niger, engaged in massive use fertilizer and depleting already scarce water supplies as they engage in massive irrigation is going to solve that impoverished nation's problems.
People also need to remember that unless the lives of the people improve it doesn't matter what the GDP per capita is. Angola is a classic example of this. Enlightened capitalism can incorporate these models.
Wealthy regions of the world don't entirely feed themselves. The US, Europe, Canada, Japan, Korea, and China all import a lot of food.
Just as Africans export food, like anyone else they can import food.
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