| | Fields of rusting tractors are the stuff of the imagery of mechanization in sub-Saharan Africa(SSA). The contrast between the failures of tractorization in small-scale agriculture and the successful mechanization of the large-scale commercial farms and estates bears out, somewhat unfashionably nowadays, the Marxist relationship between productive forces and production relations. These two additions to the literature on mechanization approach the subject from different angles. Anthony is interested in the political determinants of mechanization programmes in East Africa, while Pingali, Bigot and Binswanger (PBB) are concerned to explain why mechanization (both motor and animal traction) has proceeded so slowly in Africa compared with elsewhere in the developing countries. Anthony juxtaposes the more successful 'capitalist' experience of the green revolution and mechanisation in Kenya, with the less successful 'socialist' Tanzanian agricultural experience, while PBB have undertaken a more comprehensive survey of SSA, undertaking fieldwork in 10 countries and covering the literature on many others. |
