Bruce F. Johnston

SIMON BRAND MEMORIAL ADDRESS: AGRICULTURAL AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE: ARE THERE HISTORICAL LESSONS FOR SOUTH AFRICA?

It is a great honour and a formidable challenge to have been invited to give this first Simon Brand Memorial Address. During the past 38 years I have been privileged to get to know many first-rate graduate students in Stanfords Food Research Institute—but none as outstanding in every human dimension as Simon Brand.

Interrelations between Agricultural and Industrial Growth

The main objective of this condensed statement is to provide a ‘scaffold’ from which to view the more important interrelationships between agriculture and other economic sectors in the course of economic growth. The first section describes the process of structural transformation and the increase in sectoral interdependence that characterises modern economic growth. In the second section attention is focused on factors that determine the growth of farm cash income and an analysis of the effects of the cash disbursements of farm households on the development of other economic sectors. A final section considers some of the policy implications of the interrelationships between agriculture and industry that exist during various phases of development.

Multisectoral Nutrition Interventions

The widespread and serious problems of malnutrition in developing countries are unquestionably the result of multiple causal factors. The fact that malnutrition, especially in developing countries, is to such a large extent a manifestation of poverty is sufficient to underscore the importance of multiple causation. In addition, I will be arguing that for the groups that are nutritionally most vulnerable—infants and small children and pregnant and lactating women—factors in addition to poverty are also of great importance.