Journal of Social Development in Africa (1989) 4,2,75-84 
Book Reviews 
Agricultural Development in Southern Africa: Farm Household Economics and the Food Crisis, 
Allan Low, James Currey, London, 1986 (217 pp, £19,50). 
This book has been promoted as 'another landmark in the literature on African development'. It is 
undoubtedly an important contribution, drawing on 10 years work in rural agricultural development 
Low presents a perspective on the causes of the poor agricultural productivity of farm households in the 
Southern African Region. Farm households are often not solely or primarily farmers, especially where 
wage employment and other non farm opportunities exist. In the absence of any landless households 
farm production suffers due to out-migration. For reasons of social security and the benefits of cheap 
non-market production in rural areas, overall household welfare is maximised by maintaining a rural 
base even though it may be associated with reduced farm production. The persistent food crisis in the 
region is explained by the inherent tendency for food production per person to decline under this system. 
The book is structured in three parts. Low starts by developing a conceptual model of household 
economics in the Southern African context. Part two makes an analysis of evidence from the region, 
focusing on a number of contemporary development concerns, and part three concludes by drawing out 
some of the major implications for policy and research. 
Low claims that his decision making model of the indigenous farm household provides a better 
explanation than conventional theory and analysis of the (non) development experience in the rural areas 
of the region. To those not initiated in the short-hand of algebraic utility functions, resource and income 
constraints and the impact of changing a log-log labour return curve to a sigmoid one, parts of the book 
will be obscure! Many may simply balk at the two critical chapters 2 and 4, which present the theory 
and elaboration of the model. Beyond any air of mystification, Low's book needs to be critically located 
as 'a perspective* within what is an open debate on the nature, dynamics and consequences of both 
planned and broader socioeconomic change in the rural economy of the Southern African region. 
The model is based on an extension of neoclassical paradigms of the farm household as a decision 
making unit. His adaptation of the new household-economics theory of consumer choice to the 
indigenous farm household in the region, includes an account of both non-market production and of 
cyclical demographic processes. Based on results which Low himself freely recognises "cannot be said 
to be conclusive", the model none-the-less rejects the assumption of decreasing returns to labour on the 
family farm for an alternate assumption which is assumed to be universally applicable! 
In the absence of an adequate data-base the model is not tested nor analysed rigorously (in an 
econometric sense) but is used to explore a number of issues affecting development Evidence 
supporting the broad propositions of the model is selectively drawn from numerous reports and surveys 
of Swaziland and relevant documentation elsewhere in the region. Low's interpretation of issues such 
as the adoption of improved crop technology, non-market benefits of land-use rights and cattle 
ownership, labour migration and the broader aggregate implications of these and other features for 
development initiatives, are then explored at the household level through an elaboration of the 
relationship between market and non-market production. 
This methodological approach includes three broad levels. The first is the level of the paradigm, the 
second concerns the details of the assumptions of the model itself and the third involves the choice of 
statistics and types of quantitative analyses used in support of the broad argument
16 Book Reviews 
At the level of the paradigm - decision making models of indigenous farm households - the spotlight 
is on decisions at the household level. These tend to take place in a (less precisely specified) 'context' 
which none-the-less gives rise to certain constraints and opportunities. Despite the six page chapter on 
'Historical developments re-examined and other historical references, the perspective is such that one 
aggregates up from farm household surveys. In this process a dangerous reversal of cause and effect can 
take place. The 'context' is seen as the aggregation of all (free?)decisionmaking at the micro level rather 
than vice versa - ie the historically structured context being determinant in constrained household 
decision making. In this regard, the 'realities' of the Labour Reserves - land expropriations, forced 
location into ecologically marginal areas, and discriminatory labour laws etc, as portrayed in the political 
economy perspectives of white settler colonialism - are replaced with a rural household version of 
'economic man' in the 1980s. 
Secondly, modelling implies an analytical reduction of the immense diversity of reality into the 
'typical' or by definition 'model' farm. Both conceptually and analytically the facts of a socially and 
economically differentiated rural economy tend to be eliminated from investigation or compressed into 
averages. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that Low convincingly presents the similarities in 
economic opportunities and constraints faced by households across the region. His narrow typological 
approach to variations in household structure, and emphasis on the integrity of the household as a 
decision making unit tend to imply a greater homogeneity of material circumstances than is#actually the 
case. Furthermore, there is no attempt to identify any clearly divergent gender or class-based interests, 
through analysis of relations between and within households. 
Thirdly, while Low's analysis is richly illustrated with detailed disaggregated breakdowns of 
information, especially for Swaziland, the ceteris paribus proviso needs to be more loudly signalled 
before' evidence' is applied universally to the entire region. The use elsewhere of survey research tables 
(which present arithmetic means for broad groupings within relatively small samples) further contributes 
to the impression of homogeneous types of households and situations. It is now widely recognised that 
the very same evidence grouped and analysed differently might well suggest and support alternative 
hypotheses. 
It would be truly surprising to find no linkages between economic and cyclical demographic 
processes withinrural households in SouthernAfrica. Low'sreviewof the literature and analysis is more 
than adequate proof that this broadly recognised phenomenon exists in the region. While one can 
sympathise with his reaction to the worst types of stultifying rural class analysis, understanding the basis 
of socioeconomic differentiation is not, as he infers, solely a function of 'ideological imperatives' and 
'political leanings'. Low seems happy with the economic differentiation found in the indigenous rural 
sectors of Southern Africa. Some 'residual' inequalities are acknowledged but not considered worth 
explaining. 
While purporting to being scientific, neutral and non political or ideological. Low ends up being 
precisely the opposite. His analysis clearly abstracts itself from examining many of the 'concrete' 
aspects of socioeconomic differentiation and thereby takes on more of an 'ideological'than 'scientific' 
value! He ends up implicitly affirming that in the social sciences the value free approach is at its very 
core value-laden, and reactionary at that. One wonders firstly, what degree of residual inequalities might 
attract his attention as being worthy of some alternative explanation, and secondly, whether he is willing 
to acknowledge that the cyclical basis of economic mobility, on which he places so much emphasis, is 
in part methodologically derived? 
Clearly the demographic and socioeconomic dimensions of mobility interact - a point recognised 
by most scholars of Southern African studies. For those looking for a creative analysis of the dynamic 
relations between gender, socioeconomic differentiation, structural processes at the macro level, and at 
the level of household organisation and development cycle, the book falls short The challenge of
Book Reviews 77 
separating out the causes and effects of these different dimensions of differentiation are not addressed. 
Not until Partfflof the book does Low begin to hint at this dynamic. Specifically he advocatesabroader 
implementation of farming systems research which would more fully account for gender and on and offfarm 
activities in assessment of the production and distribution impacts of technological developments. 
Reviewed by Jeremy Jackson, Department of Rural and Urban Planning, University of Zimbabwe, 
Harare. 
Popular Participation in Planning for Bask Needs. Concepts, Methods and Practices, Franklyn 
Lisk (ed), (ILO-WEP), Gower Publishing, Aldershot, 1985 (277pp, no price quoted). 
Those readers familiar with the Basic Needs Approach (BNS) to development will be aware of the fact 
that this approach divides basic human needs into such categories as consumption goods, service goods, 
employment and mass participation. Thus the Basic Needs Approach to development, as endorsed by 
the International Labour Organisation (ILO) 's World Employment Conference held in Geneva in 1976, 
assigns a key role to popular participation as a means of action for improving the human condition. This 
book is about the concept of popular participation within the general context of the Basic Needs 
Approach as endorsed by the International Labour Organisation. The publication is the outcome of a 
World Employment Programme (WEP) project and is based on research undertaken within the 
framework of the ILO - a major proponent of the idea. 
The book is in three parts. Part one looks at definitions, concepts and typology. Judging by the tone 
of the book, there is no doubting that the authors are very much in favour of popular participation as a 
tool for development Hence they argue, for instance, that popular participation is an important 
condition for achieving sustained economic growth and social progress and a fundamental goal of 
development in its own right. Thus, in a sense, they see popular participation not only as a means to an 
end but as an end in itself. As the authors put it, "Popular participation is therefore an end goal of 
development as well as a means of attaining more equitable development" (pl7). 
In this section of the book attempts are made to define various relevant words - terms salient in 
people-oriented development endeavours. The concept of participation is defined, as are other concepts 
such as employment, consultation, self reliance, decentralised planning, and decision making, to name 
the major ones. The concept of cooperation is also mentioned, and on this score the authors argue that 
popular participation can include cooperation between decision-makers and those affected by their 
actions, without any formal surrender of power to participants, although they may be allowed to modify 
decisions in order to retain their cooperation. 
Part 2 of the publication is entitled 'Participatory Development National Experiences' and it looks 
at specific country experiences in terms of efforts to incorporate popular participation in development 
activities. Countries looked at includeChina, Tanzania and Kenya, in that order. The China case study 
attempts, inter alia, to show how popular participation can be used to promote economic and social 
development among the entire population and ho w the Chinese government actually makes use of mass 
participation to achieve basic needs and other related socioeconomic objectives of development The 
authors maintain that popular participation must be complemented by the provision of an appropriate 
institutional/administrative structure as well as a political system and socioeconomic framework that 
allows for the active involvement of the people in the decision-making process at all levels (p97). 
Tanzania serves as an appropriate example since aspects of its experience are borrowed from the 
Chinese model. In Kenya, the Harambee (Self Hehi) movement is looked at, and provides some very 
useful lessons. The Kenyan experience,manutsheH,showsthatwhenuiei»isarnismatchbetweentne 
wider political system on the one hand and the administrative and institutional structures of the planning 
system on the other, serious problems are bound to occur.