Introduction: new directions for African agriculture

Most of Africa&rsquo;s poor are rural, and most rely largely on agriculture for their livelihoods. It is therefore widely agreed that &ldquo;getting agriculture moving&rdquo; must be part of the solution to the seemingly intractable problem of African poverty. Forming an introduction to the June 2005 IDS Bulletin, this article explores what the authors maintain is a central puzzle: why is African agriculture (largely) stagnating? <br /><br />To this end, the article outlines three responses, each of which reflects a different way of looking at the problem and each implies different ways forward. These responses are: technical fixes: resource inputs and &ldquo;green revolutions&rdquo; market and institutional fixes: &ldquo;getting prices and institutions right&rdquo; policy fixes: experts, frameworks and initiatives Drawing on&nbsp;the other articles included in the bulletin,&nbsp;this&nbsp;introduction&nbsp;highlights&nbsp;key points and recommendations&nbsp;regarding such approaches. These&nbsp;include: generic policy assessments are less useful than commonly thought for policy formulation and implementation; policy assessments must always build on context-specific analysis detailed assessments of interlocking sets of constraints to agriculture &ndash; at local, national and regional levels &ndash; must be developed from location-based analyses typologies and scenarios should be developed for each context that go beyond simple either/or oppositions, but offer different options for different groups of people in different places methodological development for such work &ndash; including the building of capacity of researchers and policy-makers to undertake such analysis themselves &ndash; requires serious investment, both from within Africa and from donor countries the international and national agricultural establishment must be encouraged to think more creatively about the problem-solving process in African agriculture and their place within it&nbsp;- who frames the questions, whose knowledge counts, what models of innovation and policy formation are most appropriate, how is impact identified, defined and measured, and how is the learning from that assessment demonstrated? there is no &ldquo;magic bullet&rdquo; for the problems of African agriculture; there is a need to go beyond recycling redundant ideas and learn from past failures central to all solutions, are social, cultural and political factors. Rather than an expert-driven, technocratic approach, it is argued that a more politically sophisticated, thoroughly grounded stance is required