Agricultural mechanization in Africa: Myths, realities and an emerging research agenda

By Thomas Daum, Regina Birner. 2020

147 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Across Africa, governments, development practitioners and private companies have rediscovered agricultural mechanization as a top priority. In the literature, however, mechanization has largely been neglected following the earlier failures of state-led mechanization programs. In this empirical vacuum, several popular propositions have emerged, such as “mechanization leads to unemployment”. We examine nine such propositions and find that most of them are based on mixed evidence or not supported by evidence at all. Hence, they can be labeled “myths”. Such myths influence policies and programs and, thus, potentially undermine the potential contribution offered by agricultural mechanization in Africa to global food security. We propose a research agenda that aims to resolve controversies and support evidence-based policies for sustainable and inclusive agricultural mechanization.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4efa22a9d2ca0c0d371128dbe912c1477ed97db8

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. Xiaobo Zhang
2. B. Belton

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

1. Xiaobo Zhang
2. B. Belton
3. K. Fuglie

In Soil Science

1. Xiaobo Zhang
2. B. Belton

Citations in the corpus

• The rapid rise of agricultural mechanization in Myanmar (2021, background): “At the same time, the belief that smallholder farmers cannot benefit from mechanization is persistent (Daum and Birner, 2020).”