Policy and Capital Market Constraints to the African Green Revolution: A Study of Maize and Sorghum Yields in Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe, 1960–91

Abstract

The paper is seeking evidence of a Green Revolution in Africa. Under such conditions any technical changes which occur are more likely to be policy induced than spontaneously induced, as the conventional approach prefers, by population pressure. The paper pursues this argument through detailed examination of three African countries, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Malawi, providing a comparison between national average yields and those achieved in on-farm trials, both in dry and rain-sufficient areas in all three countries, using the examples of maize and sorghum yields, as fairly typical African crops. These three countries are chosen because their data are somewhat better than for others. Empirical analysis is carried out on the data using time-series regression analysis and cross-section analysis. Figures show that even when the population density figures are appropriately corrected for the carrying capacity of the land, the expected correlation between population density and food-crop yields does not hold. Yield increases, then, are precluded neither by an absence of appropriate technologies, nor by relative abundance of land. The paper suggests that high yielding technical packages require amounts of money which local capital markets, operating under conditions of high risk, are ill-equipped to provide. A comparison is made between the three countries, with Kenya and Zimbabwe at the top end of the yield spectrum, and Malawi towards the bottom, and countries in South Asia, where the Green Revolution has already occurred, noting that the difference in yield growth between India and Pakistan on the one hand and Kenya and Zimbabwe on the other is not dramatic. Thus, to speak of revolution in one place, and non-revolution in the other, would seem inappropriate. Also, there is little significant difference between the African and Asian countries considered in respect of the yield gap between traditional and modern varieties, or in respect of input/output ratios. Appropriate policies, taking due note of innate imperfections in rural finance and input markets, may yet be able to bring a turn-around of similar magnitude..