Farming It Out

Ever since I spent a few days in Manila last November, I've exchanged e-mails with a gentleman from Florida by the name of Peter. He worked for the State Department and spent time in the Philippines as well as many other countries around the world. He brings a wealth of experience and insight into discussions of foreign affairs. I've been encouraging him to start a blog of his own, but until he does, I'll be more than happy to pass on some of his latest thoughts here.

The first concerns farming, which I'll post today. The second focuses on Zimbabwe, which I'll post tomorrow. The two are most definitely connected.

In my travels to and work in over 70 countries as an American diplomat, I have paid much attention to farming.

I found that by far the most productive farms of the world are in the following countries: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK. The common link is that these countries all share the British view of agriculture, that it is a very worthy vocation (just think of the Queen of England in her boots on her farms) and that high tech is very much favored. These countries provide for fee simple land ownership (this is ending in South Africa).

The farmers of Europe work hard, but for the most part their farms are too small to be very productive (to have economies of scale), but they earn large amounts of money from EU agricultural subsidies.

There are large farms in Argentine and Brazil, BUT their culture directs that the owners live far away in the big cities with hired managers on the farm who seem to have limited economic interest in the farms, resulting in low productive. Added to this, the tax and land ownership policies of these countries discourage serious efforts to make the farms highly productive.

The only Third World country that I have visited that had any serious commercial agriculture was Kenya, and that was by several hundred white Kenyan farmers (AKA former British citizens living in Kenya). Agriculture in the Philippines and India was typically of small plots (often less than one acre) that were farmed very inefficiently and that produced products that were way below the quality levels expected by the First World.

Successful farming requires the following:

1. Secure legal ownership of the land by the farmer.
2. Tax policies that permit the owner to make a profit from farming.
3. Cultural values that encourage (vs. discouraging) educated people to farm.
4. Support for high tech agriculture, both in development AND in use (this is a big problem in much of the Third World that largely refuses to use new technologies).
5. Low or no trade barriers on agricultural products so that they may be exported.
6. Specialization in agricultural products that are best produced in specific countries, such as cocoa in Ghana.

With few exceptions, none of this exists in the Third World.

Tomorrow: Zimbabwe and farming