The prevailing view on the relationship between population growth and the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa is the belief that food production in the region will be unable to support the rapidly increasing population of the region. This belief is a reflection of the resurgence of Neo-Malthusian arguments concerning the environmental effects of population growth in the region. The Neo-Malthusian perspective is based on an emphasis on the inherent scarcity of resources and the inability of those resources to sustain increases in population. Increases in population growth rates place increasing pressure on the available food supply and would, according to Neo-Malthusians, lead to overcultivation of farm land and a subsequent erosion and degradation of the quality of the African environment. The resurgence in Neo-Malthusian thought came as a response to the inability of international economic and social organizations and African governments to implement sustainable economic growth policies which would, in accordance with Neo-Malthusian thought, serve to drive down fertility rates. The pessimistic outlook of the Neo-Malthusians is not shared by all who study the sustainability of population growth and its impact on the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Three important studies: “Population Growth, Environmental Stability and Migration in Western Kenya: From Malthus to Boserup?” by W.T.S. Gould (1994); “Malthus Controverted: The Role of Capital and Technology in Growth and Environmental Recovery in Kenya,” by Mary Tiffen and Michael Mortimore (1994); and “Population Growth and Environmental Degradation: Revising the Theoretical Framework,” by Mary Tiffen, Michael Mortimore, and Frances Gichuki (1994) serve to refute the prevailing Neo-Malthusian belief that population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is inherently unsustainable and inexorably leads to environmental degradation. They argue that increases in population density can actually lead to increased productivity and living standards through a variety of mutually reinforcing endogenous and exogenous factors. They argue that “historically, in many societies, population growth has been accompanied by specialisation, diversification of the economy, rising living standards, and an increasing rate of technological change which has outpaced any threat to the depletion of resources” (Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki p. 261). The theoretical framework for their assertions is based on the Boserupian model, named after Ester Boserup, which considered the relationship between population growth and agricultural production and sustainability to be positive.
While Malthus viewed technological innovations as products of accidental innovations, Boserup viewed the invention of new technologies as a product of population growth. She argued that technological change and increases in productivity become a necessity in order to survive as population density increases and the ratio of land to people changes. The Boserupian model supports the assertion that population growth “could be a prime cause of agricultural intensification. It would bring increasing pressure on extensive systems for progressive reduction of fallow to permanent cultivation systems” (Gould, p. 249). Technological change is also facilitated by the increases in human interaction that is direct byproduct of increases in population density. The argument is based on the belief that the more people that inhabit a certain area, the more ideas and innovations that will flow in out and of that area.
Another important outgrowth of increases in population density which leads to increases in new technology and information in an area, is the reduction in the per-capita cost of the provision of infrastructure in that area. The per-capita price of the construction of roads decreases as more people use those roads to transport goods. Roads serve to connect the previously isolated rural agricultural markets of Sub-Saharan Africa to external markets. “Traders can amass worthwhile quantities more easily, and sell consumer and other goods to more people at lower cost. This leads to higher real farm-gate prices, cheaper nonfarm goods, and increased incentives for farm investments” (Tiffen and Mortimore, p. 1004). Access to external markets for crops and other goods produced internally by the local economy leads to an increase in both local revenue and the flow of information, ideas, and technology within the local economy. The principles of economies of scale which apply to the construction of public infrastructure such as roads “also apply to facilities for the exchange, storage and processing of knowledge, such as schools (where, for example, secondary schools have to be provided as boarding schools when demand for their services is widely scattered), extension services, community development assistance, etc” (Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki, p. 267). Increases in the availability and feasibility of access to education lead to a more knowledgeable and intelligent labor force in the long run.
Increases in population density lead not only to more feasible and cost-effective public infrastructure projects, but also increases the pressure on governments to maintain existing infrastructure that might have previously been allowed to deteriorate. Population growth can lead to an increase in the flow of new ideas and farming methods, through facilitating access to external market and increasing the feasibility of education that both lead to simultaneous increases in productivity and environmental sustainability. The argument that increases in technology are compelled by increases in population growth was supported by a study done by Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki in 1994, which found that “the leaders in the adoption of new productive technologies, such as the plough, horticulture and the bench terrace, were the high density northern areas” (p. 267).
An increase in population density also tends to lead to an increase in the prevalence of a family member working in a non-farm industry. “Migration, however, offers the opportunity to maintain the household, and at the same time relieve population pressure on the rural resource base even when there is population growth” (Gould p. 258). Migration rates tend to be the highest in areas of high population densities. The existence of a family member working in a non-farm industry and remitting wages back to the household provides a degree of insurance against the ever-present fluctuations in the market for agricultural products by serving to decrease the dependence of the family on its agricultural income. “A high proportion of household income in the highest density areas needs to be allocated to school fees in order to sustain the flow of migrants to the urban and commercial economy. Since schooling is even more vital for people in high density areas…expenditures on school fees in these circumstances become more “productive” than further investments in agriculture” (Gould 257). Kenyan farmers in high-density areas tend to view investments in the education of their children as insurance against agricultural disasters. The investments in education are made with the hope that these children will be able to obtain a well-paid salaried job after their schooling. Increases in non-farm income from migrant remittances reduce the pressure to overcultivate which concurrently decreases the degree of erosion and degradation in the environment.
Non-farm income also facilitates capital investment by allowing farmers to decrease their vulnerability to agricultural market fluctuations through increases in savings. Out-migration directly increases agricultural productivity through increases in income, investment, and ultimately through the return of the well-educated and knowledgeable migrant to the farm. The migrant worker is exposed to a wealth of ideas and information which, with his return, leads to a more productive and well-managed farm.
Although the Boserupian model places more emphasis on the impact of endogenous factors in the relationship between population growth and agricultural productivity and sustainability, exogenous factors, such as the role of the government and its investment strategies can play a large role in either hindering or encouraging environmental sustainability. The government must encourage intelligent family farm investment through reducing the risks and increasing the profitability of capital investments. Governments must recognize that increases in population density increase the cost-effectiveness of both constructing and maintaining public infrastructure projects such as roads and schools, which facilitate the flow of ideas and maintain access to external markets. Without government investment at local and national levels, “farmer’s investments are likely to be impeded, or to be less effective because they are less rewarding and are made less knowledgeably” (Tiffen and Mortimore 1006).
The manner in which governments decide how and where to invest must be sensitive to the input of the local farmers themselves in order to facilitate the increased productivity of existing resources. “The people who have the best knowledge of the changing costs of land and labour and of the market opportunities for products and labour are the inhabitants, for the changes may be to slow and often imperceptible to outsiders” (Tiffen, Mortimore and Gichuki, 273). The governments must listen to the people who have the greatest incentive to conserve and maintain the sustainability of agricultural lands, those farmers whose livelihoods depend on it.
A Government must also be able to provide a stable political environment in which an economy characterized by small private land ownership can survive. If farmers feel insecure in their ability to maintain ownership of their farms, they are unlikely to make the long-term capital investments necessary to improve the productive capacities of their farms while still maintaining the environmental sustainability of their land. “It was notable in field visits that the explanation for a piece of land which remained degraded in 1990 was frequently the existence of a land dispute” (Tiffen and Mortimore 1005). In order to achieve the intensification of arable lands while still preserving the resource base, farmers must be secure in the knowledge that they will be able to reap the benefits of their long-term investments.
The authors’ respective studies of the ability of several communities in Sub-Saharan Africa to consistently increase their productive capacities in order to meet the rising demands of a growing population while still maintaining the viability of the existing resource base serve to prove that population growth does not necessarily lead to famine and environmental degradation. These studies illustrate that in addition to leading to increases productive and carrying capacity, “increases in population density has also helped to make markets and information more accessible, thereby stimulating wise investment in new technologies, which have enabled output and incomes to rise faster than population growth, and which have restored and improved the resource base” (Tiffen and Mortimore 1007). The evidence would seem to refute the Neo-Malthusian belief that the agricultural productive capacity of Africa will be unable to keep up with the demands of an increasing population. The authors’ studies also stand in stark contrast to the Malthusian concept of limited carrying capacity. The implementation of new technologies and wise family farm investments seem to show that the amount of food which a certain region can produce (carrying capacity) is limited only by the ingenuity of the government and people who inhabit the region. The environment and the resource base of Africa do not necessarily have to deteriorate, and in some cases can improve, in the face of increasing population density.
Mary Tiffen and Michael Mortimore, “Malthus Controverted: The Role of Capital and
Technology in Growth and Environmental Recovery in Kenya”, in World Development, Vol. 22, No. 7, July 1994, pp. 997-1010.
Mary Tiffen and Michael Mortimore and Francis Gichuki, “Population Growth and
Environmental Degradation: Revisiting the Theoretical Framework” in More
People Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya, by Mary Tiffen and
Michael Mortimore and Francis Gichuki, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1994
Chapter 16, pp. 261-274
William Gould, “Population Growth, Environmental Stability and Migration in Western
Kenya: From Malthus to Boserup”, in Environment and Population Change,
Basia Zaba and John Clark (editors), Deroux Ordina Editions, Liege, Belgium
1994., pp. 247-268