Should Africa protect its farmers to revitalize its economy?

A major cause of Africa's problems is trade policies (Pambazuka 139: How Africa develops Europe). Cheap food imports hamper investment by farmers and cause a rural crisis that drags the rest of society with it. In itself, the situation in rural Africa is not so different from that in, say, 18th century Europe, where population growth also necessitated farmer investment in sustainable agricultural intensification. Like African farmers today, European farmers struggled with bad roads, corrupt officials, traditional property rights, and so on and so forth. However, they had one decisive advantage: population growth still raised the prices of agricultural products. This helped farmers to invest in fertilizing and soil/water conservation in spite of these obstacles.

In our time, the industrial revolution has broken the relation between population and prices. Since the late 19th century, the world has been faced with overproduction and recurrent price falls in international agricultural markets. Western countries responded by erecting high tariff walls behind which their farm progress could continue. Countries like South Korea and Taiwan have followed their example, thereby securing green revolutions that became engines of industrialization. Yet in spite of all this, international financial institutions and their advisers keep pressuring African governments not to protect their farmers. As a consequence, the latter are faced with unfavorable price-ratios that prevent them from investing in sustainable land management, so that increase in population pressure on the land leads to vicious cycles of poverty and soil degradation.

The resulting malaise drives young people to the cities, but as poor rural hinterlands do not stimulate industry, they find little employment and are pushed into marginal service activities and political fights for the public jobs that still remain after structural adjustment. This jostling for jobs leads to persistence of overstaffed bureaucracies that are in their turn paid for by overtaxing the farmers, pushing domestic agricultural prices even below world market levels. For many western development experts, this is the prime cause of Africa's troubles. In reality, it is largely a reinforcing feedback effect of a crisis that has it origins in the non-protection of farmers against low international prices.

Should Africa protect its farmers to revitalize its economy? Orthodox economists say no: protection would reduce efficiency, breed rent-seeking pressure groups, and hurt poor food consumers. In reality, higher agricultural prices would encourage innovation, and reduce over-exploitation of soils and under-utilization of labour. Farmers are too far removed from political power to be able to exploit the rest of society. And higher agricultural prices would reduce poverty because they create employment and raise worker incomes.
For a further elaboration of this viewpoint see