ABSTRACT

Mechanisation has made a comeback to agricultural policy in Africa, encouraging scholars to revisit seminal literature on induced innovation. Recent studies emphasise the role for markets in addressing Africa’s mechanisation gaps and warn about past government failures to be avoided. The trust in the ability of markets to offer optimal solutions is debatable. Markets are shaped, as states are, by the interests of their most powerful players. A history-informed analysis of mechanisation and agrarian change in Africa sheds light onto how states and markets are co-constituted. The much-hyped rise in demand of tractors by medium-scale farmers can be linked back to earlier government intervention. And today’s public-private partnerships for mechanisation services illustrate how private interests shape public policy. Top-down tractor programmes continue to largely bypass smallholder farmers, though some are able to benefit. Though tractors are only one element of a complex story of agrarian change in Africa, they illustrate the enduring process of commodification of land, farming and agrarian relations that benefits the few and subjugates the many.

摘要

机械化在非洲的农业政策中卷土重来，鼓励学者重新审视有关诱导创新的开创性文献。最近的研究强调了市场在解决非洲机械化差距方面的作用，并警告要避免过去政府的失败。对市场提供最佳解决方案能力的信任是有争议的。正如国家一样，市场是由其最强大参与者的利益塑造的。对非洲机械化和农业变革的历史分析揭示了国家和市场是如何共同构成的。中型农户对拖拉机需求的大肆宣传可以追溯到早期的政府干预。今天的机械化服务公私伙伴关系说明了私人利益如何影响公共政策。自上而下的拖拉机计划继续在很大程度上绕过小农，尽管有些人能够受益。尽管拖拉机只是非洲农业变化复杂故事的一个组成部分，但它们说明了土地、农业和土地关系商品化的持久过程，这些过程使少数人受益并征服了多数人。