"Spot The Winner"

Planters Need To Play

Though agriculture is the mainstay of the Islands of the South Pacific, agricultural methods in the Islands are, generally speaking, backward. Since the Islands will more and more have to fend for hemselves, it follows that they will have to improve their agricul ural knowledge and experiment with new crops. It will be a matter, imply, of survival.

Of course, agriculture will not re nain the main money-earner in very territory. In Fiji, for instance, t looks as though tourism will take >ver from agriculture (sugar cane) is the main money-earner, and there s a possibility that Tonga may over light become an oil kingdom. But vhether agriculture in a particular slands territory is the most import mt industry, or the second most mportant or the third, the fact is hat agricultural knowledge must be idvanced.

Lack of knowledge

Mr. C. L. A. Leakey, of the "acuity of Agriculture, Makerere Jniversity, Uganda, has made a tudy of the problem of introducing lew crops to underdeveloped :ountries, and a paper of his on the übject, delivered at a conference of he British Government’s Tropical ’roducts Institute, makes interesting eading.

Mr. Leakey sums up the problem n underdeveloped countries when he ays that in these areas there is a hortage of experienced entrepreneurs imong the indigenous populations, a

lack of knowledge and understanding of world markets or of the use to which agricultural raw materials can be put, a lack of capital, a reliance for revenue on the export of relati vely large amounts of a very limited number of commodities (mainly in a raw or semi-raw state), and in ertia and conservatism among the masses.

And the problem doesn’t end there.

Says Mr. Leakey: “Information and advice on what new crops are worthy of serious investigation by a country interested in diversification has always been hard to obtain. The most frequent stimulus for new plantings is that of a sudden increase in the world price of a commodity already grown on a very small scale, or a suggestion put out by an already large consumer that his raw material is in danger of becoming scarce”.

Mr. Leakey adds: “The successful producers are those who have just brought a new crop into production when the price rises, having antici pated such a rise, while those who

only start their plantations while prices are at a peak are likely to be sadly disillusioned when everybody else’s, as well as their own, new crop comes into production some time later.

“To spot the winners in advance is the key to success. Developing countries perhaps need crystal balls or very perceptive or intelligent planners . .

Although Mr. Leakey regards information on new crops as “im portant”, he does not see lack of information as a major barrier to the introduction of new crops. Not all such information gets the message across, says Mr, Leakey. The tables appearing in some reports written by scientists, for instance, can only be understood by other scientists.

Mr. Leakey stresses that pilot schemes are necessary before new crops are introduced.

He says: “The schemes may be merely limited to the resources of a research station or they may be financed on a rather larger scale, but on any scale pilot schemes, if pro perly managed, require considerable time, energy and expertise and must inevitably cost money, which may prove in retrospect to be wasted”.

Mr. Leakey says further: “A developing country will quite rightly wish to ensure that its small farmers participate in any successful new crop development”.

Co-operation

One method of ensuring this is for a government to group together a number of farmers as a co-operative growers’ society. However, Mr.

Leakey warns that the success of such a venture depends on whether or no the government has officers enough to give practical assistance to the farmers.

In a summary of his paper, Mr.

Leakey points out that it is important for developing countries to diversify their agricultural production, espe cially for export, because of the often uncertain prices paid for their standard bulk exports.

A promising development, says Mr, Leakey, could lie in a close col laboration between the consumers and producers of specialist products so that the quality the consumer re quires can be established and main tained. The producers of vanilla in Uganda have collaborated along these lines with the consumers of their vanilla.

There could be a lesson here for Tonga and Tahiti and their vanilla growers, and even for Fiji and her lone vanilla grower (see p. 141).