You wrote about “this suggests a profitable investment scheme in which an outside investor either lends the Lesothans the money to feed their cattle adequately, or buys or rents the cattle, feeds them optimally, and gets more out of them than the Lesothans otherwise would” which sounds a lot like trying to create markets to me. The World Bank also tried creating profitable markets for cattle and cattle field and educating farmers to get more out of them than they otherwise would. According to Ferguson, this was a mistake because the Lesothans had no desire to market their cattle, and much more realistic routes to boost their income than trying to maximize milk yields.
(he also argued the same thing about crop sales; it was supplementary food they had little intention of selling)
You wrote about “this suggests a profitable investment scheme in which an outside investor either lends the Lesothans the money to feed their cattle adequately, or buys or rents the cattle, feeds them optimally, and gets more out of them than the Lesothans otherwise would” which sounds a lot like trying to create markets to me. The World Bank also tried creating profitable markets for cattle and cattle field and educating farmers to get more out of them than they otherwise would. According to Ferguson, this was a mistake because the Lesothans had no desire to market their cattle, and much more realistic routes to boost their income than trying to maximize milk yields.
(he also argued the same thing about crop sales; it was supplementary food they had little intention of selling)