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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Food Crisis and the Socialist State in Lusophone Africa
Author:Galli, Rosemary E.ISNI
Year:1987
Periodical:African Studies Review
Volume:30
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:19-44
Language:English
Geographic terms:Portuguese-speaking Africa
Angola
Cape Verde
Guinea-Bissau
Mozambique
Subjects:agricultural policy
food shortage
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Politics and Government
colonialism
Economics and Trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/524502
Abstract:The agrarian crisis in lusophone Africa can be viewed as a struggle between State officials and peasants over the amount and disposition of marketable surpluses. Whether in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Angola, or Mozambique, politicians and bureaucrats sought control over the marketing and pricing of agricultural products and over the importation of basic consumer goods more as a means of securing State revenues and personal gain than as an instrument for promoting rural development. Resistance to exploitative policies by food and export crop producers has been the main reason for the agricultural decline until at least 1984. This article shows that the agricultural policies of lusophone Africa reflect the bias against peasant agriculture inherent in earlier colonial practice and socialist policies by relying on a model of accumulation which included the extraction of agricultural production through administered markets, the neglect of the needs of rural producers, little investment in peasant agriculture, and, with the exception of Guinea-Bissau, emphasis on State farms and large-scale production. The record of these policies has been dismal. Bibliogr., ref.
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