مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

While it might seem exciting and gratifying to introduce new, ground-breaking agricultural technologies into developing societies in order to improve the quality of life and enhance food security, it may be erroneous to assume that the introduction of such technologies will not meet with some level of resistance by certain sectors of the society. The introduction of any technology can have either positive or negative effects on a society, depending on the rate at which it is introduced and adopted by the society and the expected skill level of the new technologies’ target users. The adoption of agricultural technology by a farming population would normally depend to a large extent on the society’s socio-cultural and economic ideologies as well as the application of these technologies to local production systems (IFAD-FAO, 2005). Few sub-Saharan countries have high agricultural mechanisation adoption rates, largely because of the abysmal failure of prior efforts to ensure the continued adoption of new farming technologies by the farming population once initial government support came to an end (Mrema et al., 2008; Pingali, 2007) and also due to societal resistance especially to biotechnological related innovations; all despite documented gains (Pinstrup-Andersen et al., 1999; Owombo et al., 2012; Parente and Prescott, 1994).

In Africa, agriculture (primarily subsistence) has been by far the single most important economic activity; employing about two-thirds of the workforce in sub-Saharan Africa. By this means, it contributes an average of 30 to 60% of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) and constituting about 30% of the value of exports (SRID, 2011). However, with a prediction of as much as 98% contribution to the increase of the world’s population by 2020 coming from Africa, most of the developing countries of Africa will become increasingly urbanized and face food security challenges. The successful implantation of mechanisation, therefore, has an impending positive implication for food availability and job creation on a global perspective. Using cassava as model crop, we highlight some of the possible causes of agricultural mechanisation stagnation in the African region.

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is grown all over the world and in Africa is the most produced ahead of sugar cane and maize (Fig. 1a,b) (FAOSTAT, 2016). Common amongst the lowland tropics, subhumid tropics of West and Central Africa, it is a primary source of calorie for about two-fifths of Africans (Oni and Oyelade, 2014). Its cultivation produced the largest number of calories per hectare of any crop; it grows on poor soils, and it has a high resistance to drought, pests, and diseases (Nweke et al., 2002). With these characteristics, its cultivation steadily expanded in almost all of the last two decades particularly in western and central Africa; displacing yam (Dioscorea sp. L.) cultivation in many areas and improving its significance as more than just a famine reserve. Over 90% of cassava production takes place on small farms and accounts for about 26% of cash income from all food crops (IFAD-FAO, 2005).