By a strange coincidence with my previous post on the comparison between agricultural development in Africa and China: The WB posted a report on Learning from China's Experience to Help Africa's Development.

Delegates seem quite optimistic about the potential for learning. Yaouba Abdoulaye, Vice-Minister of Planning and Territorial Management in Cameroun is quoted as saying "when China started its reform, agriculture was as important as it is in many African countries now". Perhaps some attention is needed to the trajectory to see if this statement explains where the situation is, or where it is going.

Do institutional factors explain the gap between China and Africa?

An interesting report by Ron Sandrey and Hannah Edinger at the Centre for Chinese Studies (Univ. Stellenbosh) includes the following conclusion:

The challenge for Africa is to operationalise technologies in the absence of much of the necessary flanking support (policies, prices, infrastructure, agricultural credit etc).

This report is full of fascinating insights: Page 17 notes an extension service with 830,000 staff - about 760,000 at the grass roots level - though their effectiveness and resources is highly variable.

The Ministry of Agriculture reports that the application of crop production 'packages' in Northern China have improved grain water productivity from 0.3 to between 0.6-1.2 kg/m. [actually quoted as kg per mm but this seems too small]

Learning for sustainability site

Learning for sustainability is an internet resource offered by Will Allen to support and explain dialogue processes, inter-disciplinarity and institutional change. A wealth of quality information. Highly recommended.