Brief: Prospects of a Green Revolution in SSA
In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), agricultural growth has been widely viewed as the way to long-term and pro-poor economic growth. By building agricultural innovation systems that enable the adoption of new technologies, it is possible to reverse the declining agricultural productivity. Low labor productivity is a critical problem in SSA — agricultural value-added per worker, a measure of labor productivity, was less than $1000 in SSA in 2017. Further, a Malthusian narrative has been often employed to describe SSA’s crisis arising from a growing population in the context of land degradation.
The prospect of a green revolution-type intervention to increase productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa has been tempting ever since the observed success in Asia. Considered as a pathway for modernization, If such an intervention were to take place, the long-term productivity growth could result in agricultural growth and poverty reduction. That is, the case for a green revolution policy is that it would achieve poverty reduction indirectly and over a longer horizon, through trickle-down effects of exogenous technology growth, capacity building, and increased productivity. As proposed by the Solow-Swan model, sustained economic growth can be achieved by capital deepening or capital broadening. Focusing on capital broadening, the effects of a green revolution would result in inefficient use of production factors or an increase in technology leading to agricultural intensification based on seeds, inputs, and mechanization. Increasing the level of technology would then achieve advanced production, increase the steady-state as described by the Solow model, and result in economic growth. And, in the case of SSA, we are already aware that it is not a technology leader and in such a case, technology diffusion would result in more sustainable growth as there is a higher efficiency possibility. Moreover, the resulting technological assimilation and absorption lead to structural change, improving the allocation of resources across different sectors.
By virtue of capital deepening, efficient utilization of capital results in complementing the increased productivity levels. A higher productivity level, in turn, results in the big push required to address the existing poverty trap. Further, in a post-green revolution period, the returns to efficiency in input use and knowledge-intensive technology result in increased investment in education and human capital. Combined with the increased productivity, the improvement in human capital results in a significant contribution to TFP growth. As such, the increase in total factor productivity, including changes in land use, fertilizer use, and quality, results in a higher GDP per capita. Despite these benefits, the associated environmental impacts of agricultural intensification have to be considered to evaluate the long-term sustainability impact of a green revolution.
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