88 Book Reviews
heavily subsidised by the government. Swaziland and Mauritius are other examples
of countries which have maintained agricultural production systems inherited from
their colonial past. In these and many other African countries, the pre-independence
rhetoric about improving the living standards of the masses has not been matched
with concrete actions to meet these goals.
On the other hand, Zambia typifies the confusion which assailed many newly
independent countries in their efforts to bring about an equitable development
pattern in rural areas, particularly with regard to agriculture and food production.
The study shows that in many instances, political considerations tended to influence
policy formulation to an unrealistic extent. In the case of Mali, Kary Dembele points
out the discrepancies in policy rhetoric and implementation in that country's First
Five Year National Development Plan. The study on Burkina Faso shows that the
countries agricultural development programme failed due to ambiguous policies
that were not supported by a coherent implementation strategy.
From these articles, it becomes evident that colonial attitudes and strategies which
accorded priority to the production of so called industrial crops, such as cotton,
tobacco, etc, at the expense of food crops (ie maize, sorghum) still remain widely
prevalent in a majority of African states. The large scale commercial producer still
enjoys preferential treatment in government support, while his peasant counterpart
continues to eke out a precarious existence from the arid regions of his motherland.
Indeed, while the manipulation of commodity prices and marketing structures are
perceived by some African governments to be major incentives for commercial
agricultural production, other elements such as credit facilities, input subsidies and
infrastructural developments are seen as playing an increasingly important role by
others.
Also worth noting is the fact that although the papers allude to an almost pervasive
obsession by African countries to produce for export, at the expense of domestic
food crops, it is not clear whether this is merely a colonial legacy or whether perpetuation
of this practice is deliberate to an extent where it can be linked with the
orchestrated ineptitude of emergent African states.
This is an extremely useful book for politicians, government officials and those
whose responsibilities include the implementation of government policy in their
countries.
Reviewed by Desmond Kumbuka, Agricultural and Rural Development Authority,
Harare.
Peasant Economics: Farm households and agrarian development, Frank Ellis,
Wye Studies in Agricultural and Rural Development, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1988 (257pp, £11,95 pbk, £35 hbk).
This is an undergraduate's text on the economic analysis of peasant household
agricultural production, although it could also be used as a graduate text in rural
development and relevant social sciences. It would also be useful to natural scientists
interested in developing commodities and technologies appropriate to the small farm
sector. It gives a good basic understanding of the economic principles which govern
decision-making in peasant households. There is, however, one serious flaw in the
interpretation of comparative advantage which spoils an otherwise excellent book.
Book Reviews 89
The book is divided into four parts, with the first giving die foundations of an
economic definition of peasant farmers. This essentially establishes them as farm
households with access to land using family labour characterised by partial engagement
in imperfect markets. The first part also lays the foundations of the economic
principles to be applied throughout the book, including a chapter on basic neoclassical
economics of farm production and one giving a simple introduction to the
Marxist approach to peasant political economy. The second part of the book
considers microeconomic theories of peasant household behaviour: the efficient
(profit-maximising) peasant; the risk-averse; the drudgery averse (Chayanov); farm
household; and sharecropping. Part III is a detailed chapter on the role of women in
the peasant household with respect to their economic activities. It examines the
limitations of the single family utility function (which rules out the importance of
interpersonal relationships within the home) as the basis for understanding allocative
decisions. The final section, which does not follow direcdy on from the rest of
the book, considers the impact of farm size and technical change on peasant
agriculture and development. Having included some agricultural development, it
would have been useful to have incorporated a chapter on the importance of
increased and secure market access with fewer imperfections to encourage
specialisation and surplus production.
The book which would be useful to practitioners, policy-makers and the students
it is designed to serve, is clearly laid out. The principles and concepts of different
approaches to understanding and predicting peasant production are simply
described, and each chapter gives policy implications and is well summarised with a
useful and current list of further readings. It is well-written and uses practical
examples from empirical studies to illustrate the theoretical principles. The text fills
a major gap in the current textbooks available and will probably become a standard
text. Although there are inevitably some minor differences in interpretation, diis is a
book to be strongly recommended — except diat the interpretation of die principle
of comparative advantage is incomplete.
This does not have serious consequences for the interpretations given in the rest of
the book, but it is this misunderstanding of the meaning of comparative advantage
which has led to irrational pricing policies and misdirected research priorities in a
number of countries including Zimbabwe. Ellis states that comparative advantage
refers to the physical resources best suited to the production of different crops or
livestock which exist in different locations, and goes on in the summary to state that
"alternative farm activities should take place in those locations where the climate,
soils, terrain, labour availability etc favour their lowest cost production compared to
other locations" (p42). It says nothing about price or demand. The definition of
comparative advantage which has led agriculturalists to recommend low prices for
commodities such as maize in dry regions and/or to refuse to engage in research on
maize production in dry regions. This interpretation forgets that if people in mose
areas have a demand for maize then it does not make sense to pay farmers in the area
less than it costs to bring the maize in to the area. Furthermore technologies which
increase the ability to produce preferred (higher-priced) commodities in resourcepoor
zones should not be ignored in favour of technologies for resource-rich zones.
Equally, there is no point in paying farmers in dry areas higher prices for 'suitable'
commodities such as millets if there is no demand for those commodities.
90 Book Reviews
Comparative advantage is an economic term which is used to determine which
commodity or commodities a country, region or individual farm should specialise in.
The concept includes the impact of conditions which affect both supply and demand
and is based on the premise that the efficient allocation of resources is determined
where the prices are the same throughout the largest possible market area, the
differences reflecting only transport costs. Thus die price to both the producers and
consumers will be higher in deficit areas than the price for producers and consumers
in surplus areas but the price ratios between commodities will be the same.
According to the theory of comparative advantage it will pay to specialise in and
exchange that commodity in which there is the least relative disadvantage up to the
point where price differentials reflect only transport costs. The theory proves mat
it will pay both the well and poorly endowed area to specialise and exchange, even
where the one has an absolute advantage in all commodities, provided that there is a
difference in die relative prices.
Although it is not of major significance to this text, die omission is a serious one
and the publishers should be requested to send out a correction to pages 36, 37 and
42. The book is nonetheless a very useful text and the audior is to be congratulated for
his original approach and simple explanations. I would still recommend it as a most
useful text for agricultural economists, anthropologists, geographers, rural planners,
crop and animal scientists working with small farmers, and all those associated with
development generally, including environmentalists and extension agents.
Reviewed by Kay Muir-Leresche, University of Zimbabwe.
Review of the African Poor: a History, by John Illife, African Studies Series 58,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987 (387pp, price not stated).
This is a very sophisticated, and maybe even compelling, apologia for market forces
(alias capitalism) applied to very inappropriate contexts, from Christian Ethiopia to
'the transformation of poverty in Soudiern Africa'. From the monasteries of
Ethiopia in die diirteenth century to resettlement sites in colonial South Africa, the
author has martialled an impressive array of so-called empirical data from a diverse
range of primary and secondary sources.
The methodological section, ie Chapter 1, which grapples with some of the nettles
besetting 'comparative history', does not manage to convince the reader that social
science categories that have been applied to die history of the poor in Europe in the
middle ages can be mechanically transferred to the African continent in the 20di
century. At another level the book is an attempt to offer a sentimental but historicised
justification of 'aid' and other Band-Aid solutions to die pressing problems of
poverty.
There is also a remarkable failure to blend social and economic historiography into
die very graphic descriptions of poor Africans cited in the book — from "palsied,
leprous and scrofolous" beggars in Ediiopia in 1520 to recollections by a widow in
die Ciskei bantustan, that her husband had been "a good, brave man . . . he never
gave in . . . (But) Here in Elukhanyweni he just gave in and stayed in bed die whole
time and then he died. . . . I can understand why my husband died. He died of
shame and sorrow".
A prominent diesis that runs diroughout the book is that the growth of die 'town'