Quit Pasturalism, Embrace Agriculture for Development.

[Coloow]

Jamaalow, The concept of development is a tough one to capture. Polany wrote about that concept in the 1950;s.

 

If we are talking about the western perspective of development i.e. sustainable wealth creation; improved standard of living and production, then somalia (and many african countries lag)I think we have million years before us before somalia is really developed.

 

The microeconomic nature of somalia is actually not that bad. There is entrepreneurial spirit, less taxation, foreign investment (mainly from diaspora somalis), technology (exogene), a labour force.

 

However,much of the economic activity is service). A large part of somalia's economy is driven by NGO related aid which in the long run cannot be sustained.

 

animals, hides and skins; agricultural produce (once hard currency earner) is not doing that well. For decades our brethen have undergone cognitive bias towards consuming pasta, living on shaxaad, making a political career(looting the treasury).

 

I listened to J Sachs (who wrote a book entitled scaping the resource curse) and who is taking on eradicating poverty as part of the mil-goal.

He was very positive about events ( I asked him about somalia- and his answer was bottom up development).

 

I think what somalia needs is not a government as many of us have been led to blv but something else - that something else is willingness to pay taxes .

 

I was on layman-research tour of London, MN, and Toronto to gain insights into somali businesses- and sincerely I was disappointed; it was entrepreneurship by nneccessity; black market economic transcations and businesses that targeted home-market. It was Xaawalaha this and that, restaurant that cater to somalis (many of them don't fulfill standard) and second alternative businesses. Many of those who run these ethnicinity based entreprises are on social welfare!

 

As regards the thread, much of the EU budget and the US budget goes to the agriculture sector. Many nations provide subsidies to farmers because when you can cover basic food needs of your people every other thing is secondary.

 

In the case of somalia the Siad Barre and the successive culture of warlordism turned farms into cash crop producing entities (and planting bananas, mangoes etc).

 

Eating millet, sorgum and maize was discouraged because somalia could import pasta (that was subsidized) from Italia.

 

We should not forget that the majority of somalis today are urbanised; and the only business they know is that of stealing, robbing and excerting pressure on others as away of life.

 

The camel, the cattle, and peasant farming is all but gone!

 

I say yearning for a government will not lead to development; we shall need resources(taxes) to feed the hunger of the president, pm, parliament, civil services etc and their families, concubines etc. Where will we get this money? the answer is corruption- and corruption limits the ability of citizens to engage in economic development.

[Abu-Salman]

Very insightful bro Odey, and although Somalis share these plagues with other nations, we are set apart by clanishness exploited by foreign powers and the local magnitude of such evils.

 

Of course, ensuring Food self-sufficiency, Basic education as well as primary healthcare is much more a matter of reforming our own mentality and having an authentic vision than simply having a government as proved everywhere else, where it encourages corruption.

 

I always thought Western concepts/standards of "developments" were not only environmentally destructive and irrealistic but still even worse, deluding people en masse.

 

"Willingness to pay taxes" (albeit fundamentally different Shariah-compliant taxation is more relevant in our context) is key you said, but that presupposes a shared identity/vision simultaneous with a just, transparent system of governance as testified by the experience of many other nations where so many projects and schemes failed because of mutually distrustful community whose main allegiance was to their next of kin, their clan or ethny.

 

Many nations have become somewhat acculturated during the process of colonization further continued through "Aid" and "Cultural Imperialism" (Hollywood, Times, MTV ect); hence the complexes vis-a-vis a currently technologically superior West, concomitant with the Moral Vacuum (even the positive aspects of tradition are discarded while only futilities such as music & dance are celebrated).

 

The Italian/British/French colonists started by marginalizing Somali Clerics as well as Elders and this was continued by their allied Somali heirs, hence little wonder that nothing or nobody stopped the killing and looting spree in our genocidal civil war (not mentioning chronically unethical governance as politics reflects the wider society)...

 

In conclusion, talking about "Development", whatever interpretation or model one may prefers, without first fixing the root cause of this lack of shared identity/vision is clearly akin to putting the cart before the horses!

[Coloow]

Abu-suleiman,

 

You are right bro! Somalia will need institutional building. We need to find our own way. But unfortunately we live/function in a world that is dictated by western modes of governance, economic development, and socio-cultural aspects.

 

Without laying claim to be an expert on Somalia, I blv that we have exhausted our mechanisms of development and our way of life. Pastoralism and agriculture and to some extent urban economic dynamism is all but gone in somalia. What we have are people who want make easy money by virtue of power; it is no wonder that we have nine million people who want to become president. Our people are even marginalised in the west.

 

Somalia has tried every ism that exist(communism, anarchism, warlordism, af minsharism).

 

As far as the notion of development/progress is concerned, I am not quite sure that it is about building roads, hospitals, schools etc. I blv it is about human progress.

 

Mar kale ayaan ku soo noqonayaa!

[Paragon]

Odey,

 

Yes, I grant you that development is tough to capture, however, if some achieved it successfully, then we are left with no other choice but to strive to find our ways of capturing the illusive development somehow. When I say we have ‘to strive to find ways of capturing the illusive development’, I don’t necessary suggest that we use the ways (or hands) of others, mainly Western, to capture it. However, what I intend to strongly advance is the culture of knowing what ‘development’ means to us as Somalis/Africans, so as to know how best to spread our own nets to capture it. In a nutshell, my analogy is this: some use folks; others use sticks; and others use their hands to eat, whilst the ultimate common goal being to fill the stomach. So, in that context, I believe the time has come to stop attempting to clumsily eat with folks and sticks, but with other hands. And as concerns development, we should learn to know our own realities and abilities to device the best way of approaching development.

 

Now, moving on to Somalia’s microeconomics, the comment I can make towards that end is this: it is true that in Somalia the entrepreneurial spirit exists, but this important ingredient currently remains under-used. Thus far, the entrepreneurialism spirit of our labour force is simply under-skilled to amount to anything. Even more so, our labour force suffers from severe market constraints in the form of minimal opportunities for capital investment generation. To recount the only two channels of investment, remittances and livestock trade-generated capital, these are in themselves volatile in nature.

 

(A) Remittances are prone to circumstantial volatility, heavily dependent on swiftly and unpredictable global political and economic shifts, and thus the long-term sustainability of these sources as capital investment generation is something that cannot be made the foundation of national microeconomics. A case in point is India’s previous false economic calculation of remittances (that started to flow into India during the 1973 oil boom) as a source of capital investment generation, owning to the country’s vast expatriates in Gulf countries. In one instance of geopolitical shift in Gulf countries (while Idia was under the supervision of economist Mao Mohan Singh – now the Premier), the remittances sharply fell unexpectedly in the early 1990s, and the false economic sense created by the stream of remittances, was quickly replaced by a reality of rude economic awakening, which fortunately for India, has ushered in the reform that is now known as the ‘Kerala Model’. So, as far my opinion goes, it is not such a good idea to bank on the longevity and sustainability of remittances.

 

(B) On livestock trade-generated capital investment, this trade too equally suffers from multiple risks, which our future state would be poorly positioned to minimize. (1) Since the primary commodity we are trading in/or exporting is a ‘perishable’ good in one sense, diseases such as the recent Rift Valley Fever can easily have irreparable depreciating disadvantages to the trade. (3)Again, with little or no Animal health facilities available in the whole of Somalia/Somaliland/the NFD and Western Somalia, speculative market messages can easily maximize the scale of loss of trade. I will leave this point at that. (3) Even when the livestocks are healthy and ready to be traded for hard currency, there is the small matter of unfair ‘Terms of Trade’, which tends to devaluate the worth of livestock commodity in Gulf countries, not due to the basic market principles of supply and demand; but in most cases, at the simple whim of the buyers' mood swings. This state of ever-changing ‘Terms of Trade’ regime is too detrimental to the stability of the country’s economic performance, especially by creating unnecessary flactuations, or in most cases than not, by impacting on the Purchasing Parity Power of our masses. So you see, it is probably also not a good idea to solely depend on livestock trade as the sustainable generator of capital investment. It is because of the facts I state above that we may need to diversify our ‘cash-crops’, be that be increasing our agricultural exports from only livestock and bananas, and to the introduction of viable cash-crops suitable for Somalia’s climate.

 

Another point which you have mentioned that I agree with, is the irrelevancy of an existence government, or lack thereof, when particularly dealing with issues of economic nature. What I believe that we are in dire need of, which basic economics structures are securely put in place, is the creation of wide-spread training schemes that produce high and medium skilled labour force that can work in tandem with the need of achieving sustained economic growth and development. I think such skilled labour would prove useful after an envisioned goal of self-sufficiently in primary goods trade is sufficiently met. Then, the surplus resource that would be available could be allocated for R&D purposes, to identify other labour intensive, value-added, and export-oriented industries that would require a pool of readily available skilled labour.

 

I better stop now before I start sounding like a lunatic .

 

PS: Odey, Insha-Allah we should get back to the title of the topic somewhere down the line .

[Coloow]

Jamaal,

 

You are right. The issue of remittances and livestock earnings are both very volatile- and risk prone. But they are short term posts in the balance of payments. For somalia to take a step further what we need are investments in manufacturing- since the service sector is not an issue (as you rightly mentioned we have a labour force that is unskilled) - besides that we have millions of people whose only competence centres on the culture of "earning easy money).

 

We need measures to boost domestic supply and demand. Maybe some kind of entrepreneurship that produces local goods (the money could come from the cash stuffed under pillows in London, Toronto and Stockholm).

 

A common misconception that we harbour is that it is the government's task to ensure economic progress. Many of us are suffering from a nostalgic appreciation of communism where the government built facts. We need a cognitive shift.

 

I think the new discourse on climate change provides countries like somalia to provide the fuel the new environmentally based entrepreneurship that might emerge. For instance, sugar plantations; ethonol factories; but as matter of survival we need to prioritise and nurture the agriculture sector.

 

Another area that we need to broaden is craftsmanship. Conventional wisdom in somalia has hampered the role of the blacksmith, the carpenter and the shoe maker.

 

Education is the key - but this needs institutions. We have already seen how our brethren roam the streets of Toronto, London etc and claim that they are highly educated; and when that is put to test, their education level falls below primary school education.

 

Insha Allah, I am going to respond to your other thread on sunday.

[Paragon]

^^Odey, I get what you are saying sxb. Thanks.

 

Here is

, which was the then government's broadcast. It seems as though that government was coming to the realization of switching from heavy dependence on livestock-trade and to agri-produce. However, their efforts and actions were really miniscle in comparison to the sort of overhaul I envisage sxb. What hit me negatively was the mention of World Bank and Usaid, considering the country's food-stuff self-sufficiency was good in the early 1970s. The involvement of these two, combined with other factors have surely blighted the agri-produce campaign the government propagated, I will assume*.

 

The strangest of all of is to find out that 'economic development' came under the ministry of agriculture. Insha-Allah, I will post (in Economics: State's role) something I should've finished writing long time ago; some pointers on the direction of economics in future Somali state.

 

PS: Odey, if you follow the youtube link about, you will see all the other parts of the show. Perhabs you could even look at other clips on defence and how much vital resource was allocated to it...thus off-setting the balance of sector expendature.

[stoit]

Although i havent read most of what was said before me and i will try and read them all insha ALLAH i thought maybe the voice of the common men such as i must also be aired.

 

In my opinion, if we must survive this highly competitive world we are left with no option but to provide most of our food. Starting with those that we can produce cheaply and in time moving on to others according to ability.

 

I think what you get and how cheaply you get it are both determined by your ability and your needs. To say this in other words ,it may seem cheaper to just buy from other countries now but in the long run i think it will probably work out cheaper to actually produce them yourself.

[Coloow]

Isseh,

 

Mahadsanid bro! Waxaad i soo xasuusisay waagi soomaaliya aay fiicneyd!

[ilax]

Pastoralism is a way of life of which livestock is the main stay of livelihoods.However, is pastoralism viable economically in this competitive world? Please, say those who have expert power.

[Ashkiro]

^That is a good question, sorry not an economic person myself. But the post by Zaylici really caught my eye in regards to the relationship between the figures of livestock and population and I have had these thoughts for a while now. Although I haven't doubled checked the figures personally or sure of their accuracy, however and I don't know if anyone has mentioned this before, but the figures of livestock-which should equal wealth and self-sufficiency for the given population, is a lot larger than the population itself, yet people are starving even with this wealth.?

[Yaabka-Yaabkiis]

Though i have not read much of what you gentlemen said.

 

J11, Good idea,given somalis Explosive Trablistic cultures we need circumstance that form peaceful environment.

 

For the economic development, in this era i dont think pastoralism and agriculturalism may contribute to economic development--they dont offer jobs nor create domestic economic efficiency (which may nearly seem to make it but not in this era).

 

In this Era, economic development is moving towards entrepreneurial economy.

 

we can utilize those two source as means of K-economy(knowledge economy), they might be raw Material of different product, one example is Camel Milk can be made of different products and as for the agriculturalism woooow we might produce alot different products that might cause surplus exports.

 

I am not economist and i dont wlc their idealism predicts..lool

[Coloow]

Asc, think again guys, agriculture is a source of competition. Of course there should be some efficiency, technological proliferation and entrepreneurship involved. Self sufficiency in food production is the ultimate goal of many governments in the west.

 

Nearly 50% of the EUs budget goes to agriculture. The united states too.

 

There would have been no industrial revolution if there was no agriculture.

 

 

By the way I met a camel herder recently and he informed me "AAkhiro nimaan geel laheeyn lama amaaneeynin". That is food for thought.

[ilax]

I agree agriculture can controbute alot in to the economic development of a country. But, agriculture , particularly livestock rearing, specaily in Somali context, although crop production is significan in somae areas in the South, , livestock is the 'economic base'of the somali society in all east africa, I asssume that more than 80 percent of Somals are either pastoralist or agro-pastoralist, using 'a traditional way of animal production. The backwrasdness of animal production technogy in use, lack of externtal market due to low quality of the production and some animal health related issues and recuring drooughts that erode, every year alarge proportion of the livestock population in the country, are some of the battlenecks in livestock sector develpment. The striking question is , however, having this apalling situation in the country is it pastoralism that is being livestok based livelihood still viable for the Somalis?

 

Before, answering this quyestion, look what is happening in the economic of the world. The world economy is globalisation driven economy of which you are lucky enough if you are expoloited than not exploited.Knowledge and advenced technology is engine of the current competitive world economy. Therefore, having large and bulk natural resources and other capablities deos not drive you out of underdevelopment misery ather it may even 'lock you in' of which the way out is not at your command.

To say in short pastoralism and depending traditional animal husbanery, is not economically viable at this age of 'Mcdonalisation'. We need to think modernisation , commercialisation and improved animal production technology and also most important to down-size livestock industery, think interms qulaity rather than numbers.

[Paragon]

Once more please...

[ilax]

Agriculture in general including livestock can serve a linking point to achieve industrialisation. But, the question is when and how agriculture can be transformed in to industrialisation?

Agriculture in-terms of livestock production is a bit complex and highly contested in the international market. Livestock for development demands some sort of commercialised livestock production or specialised livestock production. This means to be more competitive and innovative in the livestock sector and meeting the global standard for livestock trading such as free-livestock disease, certified animal health and putting in place all necessary facilities such check points, quarantine and abotiers. If you achieve to have market driven livestock production then livestock can be economically viable for the development. What you need is not quit rather to develop and advance extensively. Definitely, livestock sector will be profitable in economic of scale with high technique of production

 

Crop production is another sector of agriculture. This sector is very important in many aspects. It feeds the population. It also helps the country to be self reliant on its domestic production and to have food security. This sector should be developed as well. If it is given enough focus, normally agriculture can be transformed in to industrialisation. Both agriculture and industrial sector feeds with each other and make possible economic growth to happen.

To conclude, this needs more than a single answer. Therefore, what matter is the strategy in place not the making a decission on quiting or not quiting.