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Evaluating the Green Revolution after a decade: A Swaziland case study

Terry, Alan

Authors

Alan Terry



Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the Komati Pilot Project (KPP) upon members and their neighbours. The KPP was a Government of Swaziland (GoS)-financed irrigation scheme that enabled 43 subsistence and semi-subsistence farmers to change from rain-fed maize and cotton to irrigated sugar cane. It provides an opportunity to evaluate the impact of Green Revolution technology upon an African rural community where adopters and non-adopters live close together and where little income differentiation existed prior to the development because the common experience was poverty. A baseline survey of the KPP was carried out in 1997 in advance of the Komati Downstream Development Project. Of concern are the extent and direction of any trickle-down effects from the KPP participants for their neighbours and the consequences of any such impacts 10 years after the project started producing sugar cane. The expectation of the GoS was that sugar cane would benefit KPP participants and neighbours creating a multiplier effect through increased demand for services and increased demand for agricultural labour. Ten years later, these expectations are unrealized. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Nov 6, 2012
Journal International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability
Print ISSN 1473-5903
Electronic ISSN 1747-762X
Publisher Taylor & Francis
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 10
Issue 2
Pages 135-149
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2011.600828
Keywords equity, green revolution, longitudinal study, sugar cane,
Swaziland, trickle-down
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/955989
Publisher URL http://www.earthscan.co.uk/


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