Priorities for Accelerating Food Production Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Mellor, John W.; Delgado, Christopher L.; Blackie, Malcom J. 1987. Priorities for Accelerating Food Production Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Accelerating food production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Chapter 28. Pp. 353-376. In Accelerating food production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Mellor, John W.; Delgado, Christopher L.; Blackie, Malcom J. (Eds.). Baltimore, MD: Published for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) [by] Johns Hopkins University Press. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/161057

Accelerating food production growth in sub-Saharan Africa is an immense task. Financial, physical, human, and institutional resources are so limited that clear priorities must be set between the food and nonfood sectors, among competing uses within these sectors, and between expanding the supply of the scarcest resources and their immediate utilization. Setting priorities will be most vital in the public sector. Public institutions and government policy must play a critical role in getting the food sector moving, and consequently there is a need to selectively expand the capacity of government to perform these functions. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that governments can rarely initiate more than a very small number of actions concurrently.