African agricultural productivity and the transatlantic slave trade: evidence from Senegambia in the nineteenth century (2019)
Rönnbäck, Klas (Author)
Theodoridis, Dimitrios (Author)
Economic History Review
Volume: 72
Issue: 1
Pages: 209-232
Agriculture has played a central role in Africa's long-term economic development. Previous research has argued that the low productivity of African economies has posed significant challenges to African efforts to produce an agricultural surplus or to develop commercial agriculture. Low agricultural productivity has also served as a key explanation for the transatlantic slave trade, on the basis that it was more profitable to export humans overseas than to grow and export produce. However, the field has suffered from a lack of comparable empirical evidence. This article contributes to this field by presenting quantitative data on historical land and labour productivity in Africa, from a case study of the agricultural productivity of Senegambia in the early nineteenth century. Focusing on five key crops, our results suggest that both land and labour productivity was lower in Senegambia than it was in all other parts of the world for which we have found comparable data. This article thus lends support to claims that stress ecological factors as one of the main determinants of Africa's historical development.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Hoag, Heather J.;
(2013)
Developing the Rivers of East and West Africa: An Environmental History
(/isis/citation/CBB001422321/)
Book
Raffaello Lambruschini;
Veronica Gabbrielli;
(2016)
Agricoltura come scienza: Tutti gli scritti di Raffaello Lambruschini (1822-1873)
(/isis/citation/CBB645005044/)
Book
Swindell, Ken;
Jeng, Alieu;
(2006)
Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade, 1834--1934
(/isis/citation/CBB001422392/)
Book
Wittering, Shirley;
(2013)
Ecology and Enclosure: The Effect of Enclosure on Society, Farming and the Environment in South Cambridgeshire, 1798--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001420312/)
Book
Raffaello Lambruschini;
Veronica Gabbrielli;
(2019)
Agricoltura come scienza: Tutti gli scritti di Raffaello Lambruschini (1822-1873)
(/isis/citation/CBB533105141/)
Article
O'Donnell, Ronan;
(2014)
Conflict, Agreement and Landscape Change: Methods of Enclosure of the Northern English Countryside
(/isis/citation/CBB001450347/)
Book
Raffaello Lambruschini;
Veronica Gabbrielli;
(2019)
Agricoltura come scienza: Tutti gli scritti di Raffaello Lambruschini (1822-1873)
(/isis/citation/CBB240460126/)
Article
Gareth Austin;
(2014)
Vent for surplus or productivity breakthrough? The Ghanaian cocoa take-off, c. 1890–1936
(/isis/citation/CBB928283075/)
Book
Raffaello Lambruschini;
Veronica Gabbrielli;
(2013)
Agricoltura come scienza: Tutti gli scritti di Raffaello Lambruschini (1822-1873)
(/isis/citation/CBB172093910/)
Book
Redmore, Ken;
(2007)
Ploughs, Chaff Cutters and Steam Engines: Lincolnshire's Agricultural Implement Makers
(/isis/citation/CBB001201101/)
Article
Evans, Chris;
(2012)
The Plantation Hoe: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Commodity, 1650--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001212882/)
Book
Duncan, James S.;
(2007)
In the Shadows of the Tropics: Climate, Race and Biopower in Nineteenth Century Ceylon
(/isis/citation/CBB001201107/)
Article
Ross, Corey;
(2014)
The Plantation Paradigm: Colonial Agronomy, African Farmers, and the Global Cocoa Boom, 1870s--1940s
(/isis/citation/CBB001421537/)
Thesis
Laura Tavolacci;
(2018)
Agriculture as Redemption: Baptist Missionaries, Bengali Elites, and the Agri-horticultural "Improvement" of India, 1793-1840
(/isis/citation/CBB062656045/)
Book
R. Douglas Hurt;
(2015)
Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South
(/isis/citation/CBB981352469/)
Thesis
Burnett, Paul;
(2008)
The Visible Land: Agricultural Economics, US Export Agriculture, and International Development, 1918--1965
(/isis/citation/CBB001561186/)
Article
Vyzdryk, Vitaliy;
(2013)
Technical Support of Galician Village by Providing Agricultural Machinery in the Interwar Period
(/isis/citation/CBB001321266/)
Book
Bromyard & District Local History Society, ;
(2007)
A Pocketful of Hops: Hop Growing in the Bromyard Area
(/isis/citation/CBB001201103/)
Article
Mérot, Florent;
(2013)
La Fronde et ses lendemains autour de Paris: Conséquences environnementales, économiques et sociales en vallée de Montmorency au XVIIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB001212441/)
Article
Ait, Ivana;
(2012)
Mercanti e allevamento a Roma fra tardo medioevo e prima età moderna
(/isis/citation/CBB001200631/)
Be the first to comment!