Some interesting posts and a few points to make.
If we look at our context, at least in SSA, I think it's safe to assume that although the is a general trend towards urbanisation, the capacity of our economies (perhaps with the exception of South Africa), to absorb labour and provide jobs that would allow people to live to a better standard of living than they were on their farms, is very limited. Unlike many other parts of the world, we do not make farm machinery, and in many cases do not have our own fuel. To mechanise, we are basically outsourcing jobs to other countries and effectively loosing valuable foreign exchange when people here need that money. Fertilizer too is in this category, we have little natural gas to make nitrogen and almost no concentrated deposits of potassium or agricultural grade rock phosphate - we must import it from half way around the world. In general we also have a problem with cash, both for those who support our farmers with subsidies and the farmers who are trying to grow crops.
All this talk about farmers should have this and should have that is really short sighted because we/they don't have the resources required to follow the grossly inefficient food production that has ensued during the last 80 years or so in the 'west'. Surely we can make use of the tonnes of nitrogen above our heads and the tonnes of P,K, S, Ca and everything else plants need to grow (mostly) by further developing technologies that are accessible to farmers and nations, not just for now, but for the future!
Some interesting posts and a few points to make.
If we look at our context, at least in SSA, I think it's safe to assume that although the is a general trend towards urbanisation, the capacity of our economies (perhaps with the exception of South Africa), to absorb labour and provide jobs that would allow people to live to a better standard of living than they were on their farms, is very limited. Unlike many other parts of the world, we do not make farm machinery, and in many cases do not have our own fuel. To mechanise, we are basically outsourcing jobs to other countries and effectively loosing valuable foreign exchange when people here need that money. Fertilizer too is in this category, we have little natural gas to make nitrogen and almost no concentrated deposits of potassium or agricultural grade rock phosphate - we must import it from half way around the world. In general we also have a problem with cash, both for those who support our farmers with subsidies and the farmers who are trying to grow crops.
All this talk about farmers should have this and should have that is really short sighted because we/they don't have the resources required to follow the grossly inefficient food production that has ensued during the last 80 years or so in the 'west'. Surely we can make use of the tonnes of nitrogen above our heads and the tonnes of P,K, S, Ca and everything else plants need to grow (mostly) by further developing technologies that are accessible to farmers and nations, not just for now, but for the future!