Dear Arif, assalamualikum, answer below may be a layman type:

Factors that transform a country from agriculture to industry

Please let me know if the answer is helpful for you.

Regards

M.Hossain

Dear Arif, assalamualikum, answer below may be a layman type:

Factors that transform a country from agriculture to industry

Please let me know if the answer is helpful for you.

Regards

M.Hossain

The big question is do they want industry and who will control it? Will they be slaves to the system or active participants or even profit sharers. The present system in the US is basically 1% controlling the 99% in an artificial shell game. Look at the big banks and their goals? They want to own your house.

Community empowerment is important but in many areas it doesn't exist and they don't know what it means because they've never had that opportunity.

I believe community-based management and control is a way of better managing limited resources of land, water, and people for the benefit of the people, but how do you attract money? They need education but it needs to be holistic, sustainable, and culturally appropriate. Production models cannot be high input and dependent on outside resources they cannot afford. Political stability and political will are very, very important.

But I have the feeling you're asking an economic question about economic measures. One way is by looking at the internal and external economies, resources within community and also outside the community that affect your ability to move the model forward. The Law of the Minimum prevails, so what are the limiting factors to progress? Of these, the human capacity is the most important, for without it the other variables and inputs are irrelevant. 

Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. 

Dear Arif, this is a good question - but I think the answer might be different from country to country. In the case of South Africa (my country) a very detailed examination was done and published by Ben Fine and Zavareh Rustomjee - The Political Economy of South Africa: From Minerals-Energy Complex to Industrialisation. It outlines how SA progressed to industrialisation and our story would be different from those of the "Asian Tigers'. This book might be well worth reading. Daan Toerien

In my humble opinion the most important factor is the "political or Strategic" decision to address this issue. Different ruling classes in may countries do not focus on this issue because once the people improve their educational and working skills, they can no longer control them.

According to Prof. Douglass North, the most important factors affecting Economic Performance are:

1- Property rights

2- Enforcement

3- Institutions

4- Knowledge

And I agree with him.

You mention Industry, and this is not the only upgrading of a society in economic terms. The production of services is a more rapid response to the needs of economic development. Take the case of Ireland regarding IT, or India for telemarketing, telephone and administrative support.

Ultimately, what matters is that "entrepreneurs" identify the necessities of consumers or citizens, decide to satisfy them, and have access to the factors of production needed for this. The government should provide a friendly and stable "institutional environment", so uncertainty, risk, transaction costs and any contingency are minimized.

Historically this was the case of UK and the Netherlands during the 17th Century and USA in the 19th/20th Century.

We could say Chile and Uruguay have followed this recommendation in South America, and now have a more prosperous economy than other countries with a higher potential GDP.

One last comment, "Value Adding follows Value Creation", and not the inverse.

Hope this is useful.

There may be several factors; e.i. People's skill, devotion and enthusiasm, agri-based product development, country's need, national policy, etc.

In this complex question and discussion I wish to add that Ethiopia tried to do an "ADLI = Agricultural Development Led Industrialization". I felt that is a reasonable approach not forgetting the majority of the population in most dev.countries and triggering economical flows and cascades which are helpful. Guaranteed reasonably high prices for agric. products were/are a korner-stone. In Germany the traditional, most backward agricultural province Bavaria was quickly transformed during 1960-80 into a leading and advanced province by massive training, technical and commercial investments and infrastructure-development parallel to good prices for agric. products....all organized by a non-socialist party although regrettably quite delicate in corruption-matters......

First agriculture. Second, build the industrial platform to process the agricultural goods.  More industrial capabilities with the right form of education, institutions, and ICT.

After reviewing all the answer above, may conclusion is drawn as follow;

The competitive market economy is the foremost factor while labor intensive Bangladesh enjoys comparative advantage in industry (basically the RMG industry and its spillover effects) than low productivity sector of agriculture. Agricultural lands in Bangladesh have rampantly been using for industrial expansion nearby Dhaka (Capital city) and another three districts Chitagong, Gazipur and Naraynganj for example. However, factors that transform agriculture to industry have already been discussed. In my opinion, demand for growth and developments determines the nature of a country. If a country needs higher growth of GDP, then she takes policy toward the industrial developments. If we look through the era of Industrial Revolution or Chinese Development, then it may help us to guess what factors that led industrialization. As Daan Francois Toerien stated that the answer might be different from country to country I am agree with him, while Alejandro R. Silva commented that the most important factor is the "political or Strategic" decision. In the case of Bangladesh, M. Hossain answered optimum and basic, although, political leadership is really a contributory factor for which we have been suffering.

Hi Ariful, Thanks for your comment. I do also want to point out the importance and role of markets. To do so, I will use South Africa as an example. Before 1652 the Khoi-Khoi in the southern part of the country kept livestock in subsistence activities. In 1652 the Dutch East India company started a halfway stop at what is now Cape Town in order to supply their ships. They bartered livestock from the Khoi-Khoi and when they could not obtain enough Dutch settler farmers were allowed. Their produce was now linked to an external market (the Dutch ships). The British took over the Cape in the early 1800s and by the 1850s their industrial revolution needed wool.  This stimulated a switch in the Cape from fat-tailed sheep to wool sheep and provided a link with the British wool industry. The inland discovery of first diamonds and later gold resulted in the development of two large inland markets at Kimberley and Johannesburg and led eventually to the development of the Minerals-Energy complex which stimulated development of industries to serve the mining industry. So in each case a market demand stimulated first agricultural activities to satisfy the market's demand (meat for the ships, wool for the British, food for the inland towns and mines, etc.) and later industrial development. This short story links us with concepts that we find useful at the South African SME Observatory - there are two broad markets served by two broad entrepreneurial types: 1. markets of proximity are served by 'run-of-the-mill' entrepreneurs in what Ann Markusen and colleagues call consumer-led development. 2. Markets of Globality are served by 'special entrepreneurs'  in what Ann calls export-led development. The above story illustrates the importance of this - markets of globality (the Dutch ships and British wool industry) required meat and wool respectively and stimulated the development of these. Markets of proximity (the towns and mines) required food and industrial products and resulted in further agricultural ad industrial development. This is why I believe that each country's development path would be unique. Regards, Daan

Dear Dr. Hossain

There are several factors that can contribute to the industrialization of a country, and I agree with the responses from my colleagues. I believe that the reduction of local natural resources also leads to this.

Best regards, Luiz Faria

Why negative vote? Down-vote does not explain your (down voter) answer. Please write your answer so that we can learn from you also. Please let us know your views.

But I feel happy as your down-vote  helps me find out my lacking.

Dear Ariful, i would like to say India is land of Agriculture so industries itself involving agriculture,it give so much scope to export of materials also but with the involvement of agri businesss.

Economic reasons are many right from the possibility of a payable proposition to the the role of peer pressure. As a educated mind seeks comfort in each and every aspect - it tries to withdraw from whatever that is drudgery relatively. But your question has led in to a totally differnt question: What are the major factors that could pave way for industrializing agriculture ?

countries which are predominantly based on agriculture, like India, where around 60% of population still depend on agriculture directly or indirectly, it is difficult to transform the economy to industry. so government should adopt such policies which increase the productivity level of agriculture so that particular country can export agricultural products to other countries. foreign exchange earnings from export of such products can be invest in the establishment of new industry. besides, such countries have also the scope for developing agro-based industry.

Dibya, you mention that it is difficult to transform an economy to industry - so we must understand where the difficulties reside. I would like to add two ideas from my experience base: 1. it is impossible for a person who has never been exposed to an activity to 'see' opportunity in an area outside their experience base. Yet, authorities often use phrases such as: "Ask the people which business opportunities they want to pursue". This seldom leads to new insights and new types of businesses, e.g. in manufacturing rather than in agriculture. 2. There are world-class talents in rural people waiting to be discovered by accident.  We have many examples in South Africa where entrepreneurs by chance started an activity that eventually led to a world-class business. In my book Taming Janus: Technology, Business Strategy and Local Economic Development (which can be downloaded from my ResearchGate webpage) I discuss such examples and the critical success factors for such businesses.

Ariful,

Some of the key factors;

a. an entrepreneurial class that is outward-looking and confidently seeking global opportunities

b. knowledge creation and development system that sources and adapt the best knowledge globally.  

c. Institutions to support a global focus (educational, financial, trade facilitation etc)

d. a workforce and talent pool that is trainable, adaptable, well-educated

e. a flexible labour market enabling agility in firms

f. a macro-economic environment that is coherent (price stability, competitive market-determined currency, transparency) and undergirded by formal institutionalised long-term policy framework certainty by state's  economic planners

This paper may help

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299747565_Towards_a_talent-driven_outward-oriented_globally-competitive_SME_framework_Discussion_Paper

Technical Report Towards a talent-driven outward-oriented globally-competitiv...