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African Food Imports and Food Production: an Erroneous Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Sayre P. Shatz
Sayre P. Shatz
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Extract

Knowledge of what actually transpires in African economies is soft. This is particularly true of the vitally important agricultural sector, where statistics are especially weak. Given the paucity and unreliability of the data, analysts often make inferences on the basis of surrogate figures, a process which multiplies the probability of mistakes. This note shows that such an error has been made in the interpretation of African food-import data, and that its correction casts doubt on a widely accepted nation concering African food Production.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 177 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Page 177 note 1 Hopkins, Raymond F., ‘Overburdened Government and Underfed Populace: the role of food subsidies in Africa's economic crisis’, Conference on ‘The Crisis and Challenge of African Development’, Temple University, Philadelphia, September 1985, p. 7.Google Scholar

Page 177 note 2 Ibid. p. 24.

Page 177 note 3 Based on Ruth Morgenthau's estimate in ‘Agriculture and State Formation in African States’, Annual Conference of the African Studies Association, Boston, 7 December 1983, p. 37.Google Scholar

Page 178 note 1 World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: an agenda for action (Washington, D.C., 1981), p. 112.Google Scholar

Page 178 note 2 Hopkins, op.cit. p. 6.

Page 178 note 3 Hopkins, in correspondence with the author.

Page 178 note 4 With the population growing at 2.7% per annum and food imports at the rate of 1.1%, then the latter would provide for an annual increase in consumption per capita of 1.07%, assuming food production per capita remained constant.