A Reappraisal of the Role of Agriculture in Economic Growth in Melanesian Countries

Title
A Reappraisal of the Role of Agriculture in Economic Growth in Melanesian Countries
Publication Date
2006
Author(s)
Fleming, E
Fleming, PA
Editor
Editor(s): Ruerd Ruben and Kees Burger
Type of document
Conference Publication
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
International Association of Agricultural Economics (IAAE)
Place of publication
Toronto, Canada
UNE publication id
une:1071
Abstract
Fortunes in the agricultural sectors of four of the largest South Pacific countries aretraced in recent decades by estimating the single factoral terms of trade index. The singlefactoral terms of trade are measured for agriculture in four Melanesian countries—Fiji,Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu—over the period, 1970 to 2002. Thisindex provides a useful method to assess changes in returns to factors employed inagricultural production in these countries. Except in Solomon Islands, farmersexperienced a deteriorating index, indicating that they have reaped progressively lowerreturns to their resources. In Solomon Islands, returns to resources are shown to haveincreased slightly.A sustained contribution by the agricultural sector to economic growth requires a majorimprovement in returns to farm resources. Of the three components of the factoral termsof trade index, product price increases and cost decreases are argued to be unlikely toyield great dividends in the foreseeable future. Most potential lies in increasing TFP,which will depend on more effective work from the national research and extensionservices, and greater transfer of improved technologies from international researchcentres than achieved to date.
Link
Citation
Contributions of Agricultural Economics to Critical Policy Issues - Proceedings of IAAE 26: 26th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economics, p. 98-98
Start page
98
End page
98

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