Daniel W Bromley
Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics
331 Taylor Hall, University of Wisconsin Madison, WI 53706
E-mail address: bromley@aae.wisc.edu
Home page: http://www.aae.wisc.edu/bromley
"I have read the report of the March 1-2 Pretoria meeting with interest and
have found it
informative. Its strength for me comes in its discussion of the attitudes
and concerns of the various governments about land and land reform. With
few exceptions, we see clearly that all of the governments have such
pressing issues before them that land--while of very great interest to
us--is only of passing importance to most of them. And this suggest to me
that perhaps we have not been as smart as we need to be if we are to get
"the land question" moved back to the top of their policy
agenda. Specifically, we need to give these leaders a way to think about
land issues, and a language with which to discuss it, that land is seen as
a policy opportunity rather than as just another vexing "problem."
Perhaps we need to carve the problem up into smaller pieces so that it does
not seem as if "land policy" is so big and intractable. There is a useful
discussion on page 6 about the debate over the relative "productivity" of
large or small farms. We could do better in this debate if we noted that
small farms are usually more "productive" in terms of output per unit of
land, but that large farms are usually more "productive" in terms of output
per unit of labour. If we could unpack the issues in this way, we can then
suggest that in certain areas, and for certain kinds of agriculture, it
seems "prudent" (notice I did not say "efficient" or "optimal") to
encourage small family-type or communal farms. And in other places (and
for different types of agricultural products) perhaps larger farms are more
"prudent" (say in much of the OFS in SA). Here I want to use PRUDENT to
suggest to them (and to us) that all "solutions" or "policy prescriptions"
are only useful (prudent) if they respond to a problem as seen in the eyes
of the policy makers. If they see massive rural-urban migration then they
will deduce that there are inadequate livelihood prospects in rural
areas. They see the symptom (urban squatters) but they do not know what do about the causes of those symptoms.
If they fear that land reform will cripple agricultural production and thus
perhaps exports (and the earning of foreign exchange) then we need to think
about how to bring "the land question" to bear on their concerns and see if
there are ways to stimulate export crop production along with creative
reform/redistribution/joint enterprise arrangements (as have apparently
sprung up with sugar in KZ-Natal). This degree of elaboration would then
allow us to start unpacking regions (arid rural, peri-urban arid,
peri-urban moist, etc) to suggest that different kinds of agricultural
activity (and rainfed vs irrigated) suggest different land "policies."
We need to stop fooling ourselves (and misleading others) that one deals
with a massive urban squatter and poverty problem by wholesale land
redistribution. One CAN hold some people in rural areas with farming
opportunities, but this will be--to some extent--a subsistence operation
that "solves" poverty only to the extent that it removes food from the list
of unavailable commodities. Not much "income poverty" will be fixed by
these efforts, but we can create some economic opportunity (and some much
needed food production) by giving attention to these "reforms" in
particular places. I see a hint of this in point 32 on page 7 (Botswana).
The final observation is that I see very little talk in ALL land
discussions (not just this report) of the dynamic element of land
policy. We need to think hard about the probable evolution of agriculture
and rural economic activity in, perhaps, five-year tranches. In this way
we might be able to infer how a particular redistributive land reform in
region A of country B will evolve over time and become something whose
structure and production regime shifts as the initial recipients age, as
many of their children flee to the cities for jobs or better schools,
etc. We cannot set something in place in the countryside and expect that
it will not change in the fullness of time. We help leaders understand
land policy when we help them follow (and understand) the probable
progression of a rural economy as it co-evolves with the demographics of
the original recipients of land.
These are just a few fleeting thoughts stimulated by reading this very
excellent report.
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