Agricultural Technology in Africa: Issue 2

Abstract

We discuss recent trends in agricultural productivity in Africa and highlight how technological progress and innovation in agriculture has stagnated on the continent. Within this VoxDevLit, we briefly review the literature that tries to explain this stagnation through the lens of particular constraints to technology adoption. Ultimately, none of these constraints alone can explain these trends.

New research highlights pervasive heterogeneity in the gross and net returns to agricultural technologies across Africa, potentially explaining the challenges of agricultural technology adoption in developing countries. We argue that this heterogeneity makes the adoption process more challenging, limits the scope of many innovations, and contributes to the stagnation in technology use. We conclude with directions for policy and what we feel are still important, unanswered research questions surrounding the adoption and innovation of agricultural technology within Africa.

Senior Editor Christopher Udry recently joined our podcast to discuss the latest version of this review. Listen here to this discussion about harnessing technology to boost African agriculture.

Summary: Agricultural Technology in Africa

Although agriculture makes up a large share of employment in Africa, and a larger share of GDP than most other countries, crop yields remain low. There are a number of reasons for this yield gap between Africa and other regions in the world: farm size; low utilisation rates of technologies like fertiliser and irrigation. We document these trends in Africa, as compared to other regions in the world, to highlight just how persistent these patterns have been over the last several decades.  

This then begs the question of why there has been technological stagnation in agriculture in Africa. The vast literature highlights that there is no single binding constraint for farmers that can explain this stagnation. Instead, it is likely a combination of many constraints, which include credit, liquidity and savings constraints, insurance constraints, knowledge constraints, limited market access, lack of markets for quality, imperfect labour markets, imperfect land markets, externalities and climate change, and heterogeneity. We review the evidence on how each of these constraints matter in African agriculture.

One important recent finding that we highlight in detail is the role of heterogeneity: most technologies are sensitive to local context along multiple dimensions that encompass external environments (for example due to varying nutrients, moisture, soil quality, altitude, temperatures, soil structure, topography and solar energy) as well as economic conditions (for example, due to heterogeneity in infrastructure and market access). This has far ranging implications for what technologies are profitable where and when, and this may be key to better understanding the technological stagnation.

We highlight what we know to date about heterogeneity in soil and land quality; in weather; and in access to markets. This pervasive heterogeneity has implications not just for sustained technology adoption, but also for the creation of appropriate technologies. Investment rates in technology have remained low in Africa, both on the part of the public sector as well as the private sector. Total spending per farmer on R&D for agriculture in Africa is two orders of magnitude lower than in developed countries. The lack of productive technologies for farmers, given the context they face, and the lack of adaptation of general technologies to this context, is therefore somewhat unsurprising. Added to this is the fact that the cost of inputs like fertiliser still remain extremely high, as these inputs are mostly imported. A focus on reducing these costs (for example via improved infrastructure or encouraging more local production) is one essential path to making these technologies profitable for wider groups of farmers.        

We conclude by discussing some open pressing questions in agriculture for Africa. How do we incentivise public and private R&D in the sector, R&D that not just builds new technologies but also customises them to local contexts? Are agricultural productivity improvements the most effective route to eliminating poverty? Can integration of rural and urban markets in Africa provide better incentives to farmers? What are the returns to large scale investments like irrigation? Is there a way to scale down large-scale infrastructure investments? What is the role of the state in agriculture? How will agriculture in Africa adapt to climate change?

Agricultural Technology in Africa: Presentation of key takeaways from Issue 1

For our launch event in 2022, Tavneet Suri and Chris Udry joined us to outline the key takeaways from Issue 1 of this VoxDevLit on Africa and agriculture, highlighting policy relevant results from research on the latest agricultural technology in Africa.