Theories and Models of Agricultural Development- Juniper Publishers
JUNIPER PUBLISHERS-OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF REVIEWS & RESEARCH
Theories and Models of Agricultural Development
Authored by Udemezue JC
Abstract
Agricultural development is a sub-set of rural
development. However, rural areas cannot attain development without its
agriculture being developed because majority of the rural dwellers are
engaged in agricultural practices as their major source of income. The
main objectives of agricultural development are the improvement of
material and social welfare of the people. Therefore, creating a
sustainable agricultural development path means improving the quality of
life in rural areas, ensuring enough food for present and future
generations and generating sufficient income for farmers. Supporting
sustainable agricultural development also involves ensuring and
maintaining productive capacity for the future and increasing
productivity without damaging the environment or jeopardizing natural
resources. In the light of this, this paper employed available
literature to review agricultural development and theories of
agricultural development such as frontier model, conservation model, the
urban-industrial impact model, diffusion model and high-pay off input
model.
Keywords: Agricultural Development; Theories and Models.
Agricultural Development
Agriculture plays a key role in food security and
economic Agricultural development can also address gender development.
However, most of the world's population in disparities. In Sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia, women are rural areas depends directly or
indirectly on agriculture for vital contributors to farm work, but
because they have less their livelihoods. Yet as the world's population
increases and access to improved seeds, better techniques and
technologies,migration to towns and cities intensifies, so the
proportion of and markets, yields on their plots are typically 20 to 40
percent people not producing food will grow [1].
Agricultural development according to Nwachukwu [2],
is a multi-sectional activity that support and promote positive change
in the rural and urban areas. However, the main objectives of
agricultural development are the improvement of material and social
welfare of the people. Therefore, agricultural development is seen as
synonymous with rural development, the two terms are different but
intrinsically related. Agricultural development is a part of rural
development; rural areas cannot develop without its agriculture being
developed because about 90% of the rural dwellers are engaged in
agricultural practices as their major source of income.
Nigeria as a country seeks to become a leading
economy in Africa and a major player in the world's economic and
political affairs of which their 20-20-20 plan is their guideline. To
become a developed nation, Nigeria needs to speed up its economic growth
by focusing on vital economic sectors like education, energy,
agriculture and manufacturing. At this point in Nigeria's development,
the best approach is to focus on the agricultural sector. By focusing on
agricultural development, Nigeria can speed up its economic growth in
the coming decade [3].
households become more productive and reduce
malnutrition within poor families.Economic growth is seen as a long term
rises in the capacity to supply increasingly diverse economic goods to
its population. It also entails a sustainable rise in national output
with a manifestation of economic growth [4].
Therefore, the role of agriculture in transforming both the social and
economic framework of an economy cannot be over-emphasized. It has been
the source of gainful employment from which the nation can feed its
teaming population, providing the nation's industries with local raw
materials and as a reliable source of government revenue.
According to Adegoye & Dittah in Research Clue [4],
a full developed economy, especially in agricultural sector, means an
increase in the production of export crops with an improvement in the
quantity and grades of such export crops. However, for a country to
industrialize, agricultural output will be said to have acquired growth
if agriculture can supply enough materials to agro-allied industries. In
the light of this, Reynulds in Research Clue.com [4] opined that agricultural development can promote economic development of underdeveloped countries in four different ways:
a) By increasing the supply of food available for domestic consumption and release labour needed for industrial employment.
b) By enlarging the size of the domestic market for the manufacturing sector.
c) By increasing the supply of domestic saving and
d) By providing foreign exchange earned by the agricultural exports.
Therefore, creating a sustainable agricultural
development path means improving the quality of life in rural areas,
ensuring enough food for present and future generations and generating
sufficient income for farmers. Supporting sustainable agricultural
development also involves ensuring and maintaining productive capacity
for the future and increasing productivity without damaging the
environment or jeopardizing natural resources. In addition, it requires
respect for and recognition of local knowledge and local management of
natural resources, and efforts to promote the capabilities of current
generations without compromising the prospects of future ones.
Consequently, economic and environmental sustainability, adequate
farmers' income, productive capacity for the future, improved food
security and social sustainability are important elements of developing
countries' agricultural development [5].
Thus, When farmers grow more food and earn more income, they areable to
feedtheir families, send their children to school, provide for their
family's health, and invest in their farms and this makes their
communities economically stronger and more stable for agricultural
development
Theories of Agricultural Development
The main aim of agricultural development is the
improvement of material and social welfare of the people. Therefore, it
is often seen as integrated approach to improving the environment and
well being of the people of the community [2].
The first step in the process of agricultural
development is to abandon the view of agriculture in pre-modern or
traditional societies as essential static. However the problem of
agricultural development is not that of transforming a static
agricultural sector into a modern dynamic sector, but of accelerating
the rate of growth of agricultural output and productivity consistent
with the growth of other sectors of a modernizing economy
(https://ageconsearch-umn-edu/bitstream/135054/Fris-1972- 11-02-245pdf).
Therefore, any attempt to embrace a meaningful perspective on the
process of agricultural development must abandon the view of agriculture
in pre-modern or traditional society as essential static. Hence, a
theory of agricultural development should provide insights into the
dynamics of agricultural growth, either into the changing sources of
growth, in economies ranging from those in which output is growing at a
rate of 1.0% or less to those in which agricultural output is growing at
an annual rate of 4.0% or more [6].
a) The frontier model
b) The conservation model
c) The urban-industrial impact model
d) The diffusion model
e) The high-pay off input model
The Frontier Model
The history expansion of the area cultivated or
grazed in the western countries has represented the main way of
increasing agricultural production. However, the most dramatic example
in western history was the opening up or creation of the new continents -
North and South America and Australia - to European settlement during
the 18th and 19th centuries [6].
These countries of the new continents became increasingly important
sources of food and agricultural raw materials for the metropolitan
countries of the Western Europe.
In earlier times, similar processes had proceeded,
though at a less dramatic pace, in the peasant and village economies of
Europe, Asia and Africa. Intensification of land use in existing
villages was followed by pioneer settlement, the establishment of new
villages and the opening up of forest or jungle were a series of
successive change from Neolithic forest fallow to system of shifting
cultivation on bush and grass land fallowed first by short-fallow
systems and in recent years by annual cropping. As regard to the above,
where soil conditions were favorable, as in the great river basins and
plains, the new villages gradually intensified their systems of
cultivation. While where soil resources were poor, as in many of the
hill and upland areas, new areas were opened up to shifting cultivation
or to nomadic grazing. As a result of rapid population growth, the model
did not last, the limits to the frontier model were quickly reached.
Crop yields were typically low- measured in terms of output per unit of
seed rather than per unit of crop area. Output per hectare and per man
hour tended to decline - except in the Delta areas such as in Egypt and
South Asia, and the wet rice area of East Asia [6].
In some areas, the result was to worsen the wretched conditions of the
peasantry while there are relatively few remaining areas of the world
where development along the lines of the frontier model will represent
an efficient source of growth during the last quarter of the 20th
century. The 1960s saw the "closing of the frontier” in most areas of
South East Asia, in Latin America and Africa, the opening up of new
lands awaits the development of technologies for all control of pests
and diseases (such as the Tetse fly in Africa) or for the relation and
maintenance of productivity of problem soil.
The Conservation Model
The conservation model of agricultural development
evolved from the advances in crop and livestock husbandry associated
with the English agricultural revolution and the concepts of soil
exhaustion suggested by the early German chemists and soil scientists.
The conservation model emphasized the evolution of a sequence of
increasingly complex land and labour-intensive cropping system, the
production and use of organic manures and labour-intensive capital
formation in the form of physical facilities to more effectively use
land and water resources. This model was the only approaches to
intensification of agricultural production that was available to most of
the world's farmers.
Agricultural development within the ambit of the
conservation model, clearly was capable in many areas of the world of
sustaining rate of growth in agricultural production around 1.0% per
year over relatively long periods of time. This rate is not compatible
with modern rates of growth in the demand for agricultural output which
typically fall between 3-5% in the developing countries.
The Urban-Industrial Impact Model
In the conservation model, location variations in
agricultural development were related primarily to differences in
environment factors. It stands in sharp contrast to models which
interpret geographical differences in the level and the rate of economic
development primarily in terms of the level and rate of
urban-industrial development. Initially, the urbanindustrial impact
model was formulated (by Von Thunen) to explain geographic variations in
the intensity of farming system and in the productivity of labour in an
industrialized society
(https://ageconsearch-umn-edu/bitstream/135054/Fris-1972- 11-02-245pdf).
Later this model was expanded to explain the more effective performance
of the factor and product markets linking the agricultural and
nonagricultural sectors in regions characterized by rapid
urban-industrial development. The model has been tested extensively in
the limited states but has received only limited attention in the less
developed world.
The Diffusion Model
The diffusion approach to agricultural development
rests on the empirical observation of substantial differences in land
and labour productivity among farmers and regions. The route to
agricultural development, in this view is through more effective
dissemination of technical knowledge and a narrowing of the productivity
differences among farmers and among regions. The diffusion of better
husbandry practices was a major source of productivity growth even in
pre-modern societies. Before the development of modern agricultural
research systems' substantial effort was devoted to crop exploration and
introduction. Even in nations with well-developed agricultural research
systems a significant effort is still devoted to the testing and
refinement of farmers' innovations and to testing and adaptation of
exotic crop varieties and animal species. Model was developed
emphasizing the relationship between diffusion rates and the
personality, characteristics and educational accomplishments of farm
operators. Diffusion model provides the major intellectual foundation of
much of the research and extension effort in farm management and
production economics since the emergence, in the later of the 19th
century of agriculture economics as a separate sub discipline linking
the agricultural sciences and economics. The developments that led to
the establishment of active programs of farm management research and
extension occurred at a time when experiment-station research was making
only a modest contribution to agricultural productivity growth. A
further contribution to the effective diffusion of known technology was
provided by the research of rural sociologists on the diffusion process.
The limitations of the diffusion model as a foundation for the design
of agricultural development policies became increasingly apparent as
technical assistance and community development programs, based
explicitly or implicitly on the diffusion model, failed to generate
either rapid modernization of traditional farms or rapid growth in
agricultural output.
The High Payoff Input Model
The inadequacy of policies based on the conservation,
urban-industrial impact and diffusion model led to a new perspective in
the 1960s. The key to transforming a traditional agricultural sector
into a productive source of economic growth is an investment designed to
make modern, high-pay off inputs available to farmers in poor
countries. Peasants, in traditional agricultural systems were viewed as
rational, efficient resource allocators. They remained poor because in
most poor countries, there were only limited technical and economic
opportunities to which they could respond.
According to Ruttan [6], the new high pay-off inputs were classified into three categories.
a) The capacity of public and private sector research institutions to produce new technical knowledge
b) The capacity of the industrial sector to develop, produce and market new technical inputs.
c) The capacity of farmers to acquire new knowledge and use new inputs effectives.
The enthusiasm with which the high pay off input
model has been accepted and translated into economic doctrine has been
due in part to the proliferation of studies reporting high rates of
returns to public investment in agricultural research. It was also due
to the success of efforts to develop new, high productivity grain
varieties suitable for the tropic. New high-yielding wheat varieties
were developed in Mexico, beginning in the 1950s, and new high-yielding
rice varieties were developed in the Philippines in the 1960s. These
varieties were highly responsive to industrial inputs such as fertilizer
and other chemicals and to more effective soil and water management.
However, the high returns associated with the adoption of the new
varieties and the associated technical inputs and management practices
have led to rapid diffusion of the new varieties among farmers in
several countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The model remains incomplete as a theory of
agricultural development. However, education and research are public
goods not traded through the market place. The mechanism by which
resources is allocated among education, research and other alternative
public and private sector economic activities are not fully incorporated
into the model. More so, the model does not treat investment in
research as the source of new high-pay off techniques. It does not
explain how economic conditions induce the development and adaption of
an efficient set of technologies for a particular society. Nor does it
attempt to specify the process by which factor and product price
relationships induce investment in research in a particular direction.
Conclusion
As regard to the effects and the emergence of
agricultural growth is critical for industrialization and economic
growth in the 1960s, however, the process of agricultural growth itself
has remained outside the concern of the most developing economics. Both
technical change and institutional evolution have been treated as
exogenous to the systems. In this paper, analytical approach was used to
review agricultural development theories and models of agricultural
development for the sustainability of urban-rural development
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