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Coffee After Copper? Structural Adjustment, Liberalisation, and Agriculture in Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Jonathan Kydd
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Extract

In contrast to its policies in the economic sphere, Zambia has one of Africa's most liberal approaches to press freedom. To convey the flavour of public debate during, or immediately after, the 19-month experiment with a market-determined exchange rate, 10 quotations are presented below:

Large scale mining will continue for 12 to 20 years, but small-working may go on for 50–60 years.

– Francis Kaunda, Chairman, Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines, June 1987.

Coffe after copper.

– Campaign slogan of the Coffee Growers Committee of the Commercial Farmers' Bureau.

Even real socialist countries have to find and use foreign exchange.

– Kebby Musokotwane, Prime Minister, replying to a question in the National Assembly, August 1986.

Zambia's cardinal mistake was to subsidise consumption for a long time, thereby delaying diversification.

– Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia, May 1986.

The economic reform programme has begun to succeed: devaluation has stimulated exports.

– Kenneth Kaunda, August 1936, Opening the 21st U.N.I.P. National Council Meeting.

It was not socialist principles which ruined the Zambian economy, but unfavourable economic terms which the North has imposed on the South…I have no power…we agreed to the IMF reform programme much against out better judgement.

– Kenneth Kaunda, August 1986, interviewed by Swedish, West German, and Cuban journalists.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 227 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Page 227 note 1 Sources in order of presentation: Times of Zambia (Lusaka), 26 06 1987,Google ScholarZambia Daily Mail (Lusaka), 25 06 1986, Times of Zambia, 13 August 1986, 19 May 1986, 27 August 1986, 19 August 1986, 23 March 1987, 20 August 1987, 20 August 1986, 20–30 June 1987, and 18 February 1987.Google Scholar

Page 228 note 1 Kydd, Jonathan,‘Changes in Zambian Agricultural Policy Since 1983: problems of liberalisation and agrarianisation’, in Development Policy Review (London), 4, 3, 09 1986, pp. 233–59.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 1 The argument here being that, in the absence of subsidies, the production of maize would be reduced, other crops being preferred at the mergin because of their lower costs and/or risk of failure.

Page 231 note 2 These included an over-valued exchange rate, and subsidies to the local manufacturer.

Page 231 note 3 Although the price of the higher-grade known as breakfast meal was doubled, that for the more widely-used roller-meal was not increased.

Page 232 note 1 In a total population of about 7.2 million, the most recent estimate of unemployment, which has to be regarded as an extermely broad guess, in 2 million, given by Ben Zulu, Minister of State for Youth; Times of Zambia, 28 July 1987. The observation of labour shortage on commercial frams comes from the author's fieldwork in July 1985 and April and November 1986, The disappointing response to voluntary resettlement programmes was commented onby Prsident Kaunda in July 1987, in a speech in which he raised the possibillity of amending the constitution to permit forcible constitutional amendement was on the agenda fof discussion at the U.N.I.P. National Council; ibid. 19 December 1987.

Page 233 note 1 For the classic discussion of what has happened since independence, see Doris J. Dodge, ‘Agricultural Policy and Performance in Zambia: history, prospects and proposals for change’, Institute of International Studies, Berkeley Research Series, No. 32, 1977. A more recent interpretation is proviede by Jonathan, Kydd in Charles, Harvey (ed.), Agricultural Princing and Marketing in Africa (London, 1988).Google Scholar

Page 233 note 1 For the views of the Government of Zambia, see ‘Resturcturing in the Midst of Crisis’, background papers for the Consultative Group for Zambia, Paris, May 1984, Vol. I, ‘Development Politices and Objectives’, and Vol. II, ’The Expenditure Programme’, also ‘An Action Programme for Economic Restucturing’, Consulative Group for Zambia, June 1985. For World Bank views, see ‘Zambia. Country Economic Memorandum: issues and options for economic diversification’, Easter Africa Country Programs Department, April 1984, and ‘Report to the Consultative Group on Zambia on Progress Towards Economic Restructuring’, Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, April 1985. For academic analyses, see Daniel, Philip,‘Zambia: structural adjustment or downward spiral?’, in IDS Bulletin (Brighton), 16, 3, 07 1985, and Kydd, loc. cit. 1986 and 1988.Google Scholar

Page 234 note 2 Kydd, loc. cit. 1986, pp. 235–6.

Page 235 note 1 Data from I.M.F. sources.

Page 237 note 1 Government of Zambia, op. cit. 1984 and 1985.

Page 238 note 1 There are some respectable arguments against devaluation as a remedy for the problems of the mining industry, based on the observaion that this will not (in the short term) alter the foreignexchange revenues from copper exports. The potential benefits lie in the fact that devaluation, at least initially, reduces the real costs (i.e. in terms of foreign exchange) of the domestic-resource components in mining. It is perfectuly ture that these might be lowered by other means, e.g. if the Government were to reduce mineral royalties (as actually happened in the 1988 budget), or if the mine companies were to cut employment and pay. The arguments for and against devaluation then turn on its relative efficacy and political feasibility vis-à-vis other possible packages of measures.

Page 240 note 1 In U.S. diplomatic circles, the replacement of Luke Mwananskiku (Minister of Finance) and David Phiri (Government of the Bank of Zambia) by Basil Kabwe and Leonard Chivuno was despondently described as the ‘Mulungushi Massacre’ (after the Mulungushi Hall in which Kaunda made the announcement), and was quite correctly seen as a sign that the Zambian political process was rejecting the I.M.F. package, Phiri, an Oxford graduate, was much respected by the western financial community, while Chivuno, a Leningrad graduate, was strongly identified with the anti-I.M.F. camp.

Page 241 note 1 Evidence of the I.M.F.'s conditions for contnuation of support in the first quarter of 1987 comes from the Prime Minister's briefing of diplomats shortly after the break with the I.M.F., reported in Times of Zambia, 6 May 1987.

Page 242 note 1 Ahmed Abdalla, Director of the I.M.F.'s Africa Department, quoted in Times of Zambia, 19 and 20 June 1987.

Page 245 note 1 Times of Zambia, 24 November 1987.

Page 245 note 2 Ibid.

Page 245 note 3 Ibid. 13 November 1987.

Page 246 note 1 Ibid. 14 January 1988.

Page 246 note 2 Ibid. 22 January 1988.

Page 246 note 3 Ibid. 30 January and 1 February 1988.

Page 246 note 4 As already noted, the classic critique of the post-independence performance of Zambian agriculture is Dodge, op. cit. More up-to-date additions to this literature include Kydd, loc. cit. 1988 and two studies by the Eastern and Southern Africa Projects Department of the World Bank, ‘Zambia: policy options and strategies for agricultural growth’, June 1984, and ‘Zambia: agricultural pricing and parastatal performance’, June 1986.

Page 246 note 5 Dodge, op. cit. and World Bank, ‘Policy Options and Strategies’.

Page 247 note 1 Kydd, op. cit. 1988.

Page 247 note 2 Ibid.