Population pressure, the environment and agricultural intensification: variations on the Boserup hypothesis
Lele, U.; Stone, S.W.
MADIA Discussion Paper 4: 79pp.
1989
DOI: 10.1080/0032472031000145326Document Number: 369326
This paper explores the relationship among population densities, agricultural production, land, labour, and rural incomes to expand the explanatory base of the Boserup hypothesis, which holds that with increasing population densities, a corresponding shift to greater agricultural production and more intensive use of the land takes place autonomously through the development of market forces. The movement away from traditional area-extensive farming methods is associated in the model with higher levels of technology, labour, and capital investment in land. In view of the rapid rates of population growth in Africa and the decreasing frontier, the question arises as to how far market forces alone can induce a productivity-enhancing process of agricultural intensification in sub-Saharan Africa, and to what extent it must be complemented by an active public policy to support broad-based agricultural development. The paper surveys existing literature and compiles data at the regional level for the six MADIA countries to isolate variables in the equation linking the intensity of land use, the increasing opportunity costs of idle or fallow periods, the effects of continuous cropping on the soil, and their policy implications. Two types of intensification are distinguished. The first type, identified by Boserup, occurs spontaneously as more land is cropped more frequently in response to higher population densities. The second depends more on policy and incentives for a shift to crops of higher value or higher yields, or to more productive land. It is concluded that the most direct means of addressing the problems of rapid population growth and environmental stress include: (1) redefining land policy; (2) stabilizing production and consumption policies by targeting crop research, improving rural physical and social infrastructure, accelerating fertilizer use, extending credit, granting access to export markets; and (3) rethinking population policy. Failure to address these policy issues will lead to increasing stress on the environment.