Public Policy, Markets and Technical Progress in the Grain Plough Culture

Abstract

Based on an inter-activity analysis of a village economy of the grain-plough culture of Ethiopia, this paper is a critique of some of the premises of current rural development programmes in the country and approaches to reforms in agrarian policy. Contrary to these premises, the paper al8Ues, final demand injections may be superior to transfer injections as means of raising the incomes or the marketable surplus of rural economies in the culture. Final demand injections may also be more effective in those terms when directed at home activities rather than fanning and at traditionally less traded grain types rather than those observed as the main traditional "exports" of the economy. Furthermore, it is a strong possibility that the same injections are a viable substitute to projects of technological intervention should these be not feasible in a locality. The agronomic bias characterising such projects at the moment also seems to be unjustified. Results supporting the case for final demand injections imply that technological interventions may be more effective when directed at home activities rather than farm activities and a  more effective when directed at home  activities rather than farm activities and at less known crops of a rural economy rather than at traditional major "exports".