You could argue that Argentina, and even my home country of new Zealand have kind of “made it” through agriculture.
My issue is, even assuming you are right Larks and African countries somehow manage become far more productive at farming and become more competitive on the global stage, thats unlikely to solve the jobs problem. Increased productivity means industrialized farming, means less farming jobs not more. Especially in countries like Uganda with high population and low land area, it’s hard to see how this could solve the jobs problem, although obviously it would probably be net positive and help the economy.
New Zealand and Argentina also have huge land area to population ratios, which enables large scale farming to have a bigger impact.
As a side note the absolute nail in the coffin for any opportunity for African countries to become serious food exporters are the insane farming subsidies and tariffs both in the EU and the US, which wipe out one of the only sectors African countries have a chance to be competitive in. Noone talks about it much, but it’s not impossible these subsidies and tariffs might cause more net suffering than all the aid these countries reduce IDK.
Great discussion
You could argue that Argentina, and even my home country of new Zealand have kind of “made it” through agriculture.
My issue is, even assuming you are right Larks and African countries somehow manage become far more productive at farming and become more competitive on the global stage, thats unlikely to solve the jobs problem. Increased productivity means industrialized farming, means less farming jobs not more. Especially in countries like Uganda with high population and low land area, it’s hard to see how this could solve the jobs problem, although obviously it would probably be net positive and help the economy.
New Zealand and Argentina also have huge land area to population ratios, which enables large scale farming to have a bigger impact.
As a side note the absolute nail in the coffin for any opportunity for African countries to become serious food exporters are the insane farming subsidies and tariffs both in the EU and the US, which wipe out one of the only sectors African countries have a chance to be competitive in. Noone talks about it much, but it’s not impossible these subsidies and tariffs might cause more net suffering than all the aid these countries reduce IDK.