Letters | On Africa, the Commonwealth, precision, America, energy poverty, China, migrants, George Martin, Moore’s law

Letters to the editor

Farming in Africa today

A green evolution” (March 12th) highlighted the things that are getting better in African agriculture. But you underplayed two negative aspects. The first is the pernicious effect of aid. When I was in Tanzania, working for a venture-capital fund, the country had the third-largest cattle population in Africa. Yet there was no indigenous dairy industry, not least because the European Union used it as a convenient place to dump its surplus milk powder. It is hard to compete with free goods.

The second point is that African entrepreneurs, on the whole, do not want to invest in agriculture. Aid programmes may have given potential businessmen an education, but most then choose an urban lifestyle, if they have not moved abroad. Setting up mobile-phone and internet companies in the big city, yes; being farmers out in the bush, no. The absence of domestic go-getters means that farms remain small; the added value of agricultural processing is negligible or absent.

I looked at investing in a farm outside Dar es Salaam run by a doctor who was the medical adviser to many of the city’s elite. They all thought him completely bonkers.

ROBERT SATCHWELL
Haarby, Denmark


It is right to point to good governance as the key to sustaining growth in African agriculture. But so too is water resilience and security. Africa’s water is shared across 13 river basins that are mostly accessed by five or more countries. Collective action at the local, national and regional level has contributed to the agricultural success story, so far. But with the number of water-scarce countries set to rise over the next ten years, more needs to be done.

Investments in small-scale water technologies such as low-till or zero-till agriculture, supplemental irrigation, groundwater recharge and rainwater harvesting could yield a direct net benefit of up to $200 billion to Africa’s 100m farmers.

CALLUM CLENCH
Executive director
International Water Resources Association
Paris

You correctly noted the potential for African farmers to increase their production through the use of hybrid seed and fertiliser. But you also described the challenges facing the industry because of human handicaps. There is an important link between the two. Data from Uganda show that significantly fewer farmers, 10%, are using hybrid seeds and only 3% are using fertiliser. Our research investigating the quality of agricultural inputs found that in local markets, 30% of nutrient is missing in fertiliser. Hybrid maize seeds contain less than 50% of authentic seed.

These shortfalls in quality imply that many of the fertilisers and seeds sold in the market are simply not profitable. Therefore, tackling the issue of substandard inputs is an important step towards increasing productivity in agriculture in Uganda in the near future. Agriculture in Africa is complex and heterogeneous. There will not be a single answer for the whole of the continent.

RICHARD NEWFARMER
Country director for Uganda
International Growth Centre
London

Big problems arising from increased crop production in Africa include tremendous erosion and the depletion of natural vegetation. Traditional shifting cultivation has given way to continuous cropping with few, if any, conservation practices; marginal land is particularly vulnerable. The results are all too evident: perennial streams are now ephemeral, and massive quantities of topsoil silt up dams and flow into the oceans.

The Economist should stop looking at sub-Saharan Africa through rose-coloured spectacles. The region is doomed to more frequent famines that will be the consequence of diminishing cropland, grazing and water resources.

BRIAN DUNCAN
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

A common good

My response to whether the Commonwealth is worth it is an emphatic Yes! (“What’s the point of it?”, March 19th). Most Commonwealth countries often get out more than they put in. When I was heading up the Commonwealth Secretariat, Britain’s concerns were dominated by its relationship with America and with Europe, and by the threats, dramas and problems of the Middle East. Thinking about the Commonwealth was well down the pecking order. But British ministers who have understood the Commonwealth, and who have wanted to expand initiatives, have found a ready forum in the organisation. With more than 50 member countries it is a mini UN.

The Commonwealth is no drain on the British taxpayer. A few years ago, my research showed that the cost per British citizen to belonging to the EU was about £60 ($85) a year, to the UN about £10, NATO £2 and the Commonwealth about 17 pence. And never underestimate the 80-plus organisations who carry the name Commonwealth for a variety of linkages and benefits. This grouping is the envy of La Francophonie.

When the Commonwealth moves collectively, that is, when all countries are pursuing the same objective of free and fair elections and good governance, it can act against countries that don’t even pay lip service to those values. The fact that Zimbabwe and Gambia are no longer in the Commonwealth is because of a reluctance by the leaders of those countries to accept, adhere, commit and administer those values.

SIR DONALD MCKINNON
Commonwealth secretary-general 2000-08
Pukekohe, New Zealand

* The crisis of the Commonwealth is one of identity rather than purpose. Many people would like it to be an organisation defined by shared values rather than an imperial legacy which it it isn’t: its members include undemocratic, human-rights violating governments. But one thing Commonwealth countries do share is their people. In 2010 the average Commonwealth country had received around half its immigrants from, and sent half its emigrants to, other Commonwealth countries. They collectively constitute one of the world’s great migration arenas, accounting for about a fifth of all migration globally. Despite differing values and their historical antagonisms, Commonwealth countries have an unparalleled depth of experience in cooperation over migration, and they have much to teach other regions where migration is now wrongly treated as a crisis.


Migration is a defining issue that could galvanize the energy and expertise of the Commonwealth and perhaps even demonstrate its ongoing relevance as an organisation. And so, before asking what the Commonwealth is for, it is worth reconsidering what it is.

ALAN GAMLEN
Associate Professor
Visiting Scholar, Stanford University

Precisely

“More than 40” I get. “Nearly 50” I get. But “Isaac Nabwana has written, directed and edited more than 47 films since 2008,” I don’t get (“Lights, camera, no budget”, March 5th). How many films did Mr Nabwana produce: 48?

MICHAEL ARKIN
Toronto

Political round-up

For months you have written off Bernie Sanders, consistently using punchy language to describe him as “crotchety” or a “septuagenarian”, even though he has only a few years on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. “Beware the ides of March” (March 19th) went so far as to claim that Mrs Clinton “breezed through” the Midwestern primaries. I would hardly call margins of victory of 1.8 and 0.2 percentage points in Illinois and Missouri solid wins. Mrs Clinton’s delegate lead has been amassed from mostly southern states, which she will not carry in November.

These statistics, however, mask the importance of describing a populist movement spreading in America that is the antithesis of Mr Trump’s vitriolic message. Mr Sanders is calling for a systemic, pragmatic change and a government that works for all, not the few.

MICHAEL MARZANO
Chicago

In 1935, with fascism on the rise in Germany and Italy, Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen Here”, a chilling semi-satirical political novel. The book focuses on the rise to power of Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip who, with fantasist promises, wins the presidency. Windrip’s campaign strategy is eerily similar to Mr Trump’s: xenophobic and violent and at the same time promoting traditional values. His base of support came from the League of Forgotten Men, made up from the millions who were dispossessed by the Depression. Suffice to say, it does not end well for those who prize democracy and freedom.

RON MCALLISTER
York, Maine

Mrs Clinton is not the first lady to run for president of the United States. That would be Victoria Woodhull in 1872. She was an advocate for free love, famously proclaiming that she had an “inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can, to change that love every day if I please”.

MATTHEW GOMEL
New York

Predicting American primary elections has always been a mug’s game (“Mich-fire”, March 12th). In every primary-election cycle some excellent polling firms, which have good records of forecasting general elections, have been badly embarrassed. Extreme volatility, very low turnout and the difficulty of finding likely voters can make even the best polls look bad. Everyone notices a bad prediction, whereas you get little credit for a good one. Which is why we decided, 25 years ago, not to poll primaries.

HUMPHREY TAYLOR
Chairman emeritus
Harris Poll
New York

Lighting the way

* You commendably shed light on off-grid solar companies’ role in improving electricity access in East Africa and yet your article omits some of the real challenges of ending energy poverty (“Power to the powerless”, February 27th).

Analysis by the Overseas Development Institute, CAFOD and Christian Aid shows the cheapest way for most energy-poor people to get electricity is via off-grid, largely through renewable technologies. For grid access, the main barriers involve distribution, not generation: unreliable service, unaffordable connection fees and, as you explain, utilities’ failure to recover their costs.
African countries need more capacity to power economic development, but it is not true that wind and solar power is too expensive and unreliable. In South Africa, Eskom recently purchased wind power at prices 17% lower than those projected for the two new coal plants, Medupi and Kiseli. Africa has huge untapped renewables potential, and as its share of capacity grows, there are many options to balance supply and demand.

However, increasing the electricity supply will not necessarily tackle the most prevalent form of energy poverty—cooking with polluting fuels like firewood. Indoor air pollution contributes to 4.3m deaths globally each year. Few African and Asian households cook with electricity, even once connected to the grid. Other methods of cleaner cooking are cheaper, such as advanced biomass cook stoves, liquid petroleum gas stoves or biogas systems.

ILMI GRANOFF
Senior Research Fellow
Overseas Development Institute

SARAH WYKES
Lead Energy Analyst, CAFOD
London

Overcapacity in China

It is true that the Chinese government has recognised the problem of overcapacity in China (“The march of the zombies”, February 27th). There should be no illusion about the problem: overcapacity, including excessive capacity in the steel industry, is a daunting global challenge, but particularly acute in China. The government is thoroughly restructuring the Chinese economy, despite the social costs this entails. Eliminating overcapacity heads the agenda for reforming the supply side. The State Council has urged all authorities across the country to implement its directives on cutting capacity.

Zombie enterprises with redundant capacity are leaving the market. Banks in China are banned from providing loans to them. It is therefore practically impossible for zombie enterprises to manoeuvre the export of their excessive products. Moreover, new projects in the industries with excessive capacities will not be approved any more and both state-owned enterprises and private firms are encouraged not to expand but to merge and cut capacity in order to carry out industrial transformation.

Tackling overcapacity in the steel industry is a telling case. China has reduced capacity by more than 90m tonnes in recent years; last year it cut investment in iron and steel assets by 13%. Steel-production capacity is to be reduced by a further 100-150m tonnes.

China has surpluses, yes, and more may need to be done, but things are moving in the right direction.

YE FUJING
Economic adviser
China’s Mission to the EU
Brussels

A promise on migrants

You analysed the feasibility of the Turkey-EU agreement but overlooked why many people are so sceptical of it (“A messy but necessary deal”, March 12th). It is not because it is unreasonable—it is because it is unenforceable. The last grand bargain was struck at the EU-Turkey Summit last November. The €3 billion ($3.4 billion) aid package had been contingent on taking action. Within hours Turkey launched the largest sting operation to date, rounding up 1,300 migrants on its beaches.

Since then Turkey has done little to make good on its promise. The police have been overlooking much of the smuggling economy in Izmir. Cesme’s beaches are unpoliced, with hundreds departing to Chios daily.

It is not just that Turkey makes shallow promises. EU membership has been dangled in front of Turkey since negotiations started in 2005, despite the glaring problem of German and Cypriot rejections. Furthermore, visa-liberalisation has been offered at a time of intense debate about the EU’s free-movement policy. Granting Turkey “safe country of origin” status comes at Mr Erdogan’s most fruitful period of press-censorship.

I wonder who will call whose bluff first.

MARIA WILCZEK
Oxford

Eight days a week

His modesty notwithstanding, George Martin’s indelible influence on The Beatles cannot be overstated (Obituary, March 19th). His suggestions transformed “Please Please Me” from a slow, sombre song into a number-one hit. His string quartet turned “Yesterday” into an introspective timeless classic. His genius is evident in the baroque-style piano bridge he wrote and played for “In My Life”, in Paul McCartney’s deftly multi-tracked lead vocal in “Here, There and Everywhere”, and in his thunderous orchestral crescendo for “A Day in the Life”. He added a marching band to “Yellow Submarine”, a French horn solo to “For No One”, and piccolos to “Here Comes the Sun”.

He was unquestionably one of the most important and talented producers in music history.

STEPHEN SILVER
San Francisco, California

More on Moore

As a veteran of the semiconductor industry I thoroughly enjoyed your assessment of the state of computing and Moore’s law (Technology quarterly, March 12th). I was fortunate enough to work under Moore at the Fairchild research facility and to hear his early presentation on the trend he observed in transistor density at a meeting of local engineers in Palo Alto. At the time, he wondered how all these projected thousands (not billions) of transistors could possibly be utilised.

However, I think you have understated the cost/transistor trend. In the past, shrinking transistor geometry augmented by increased wafer diameter drove the cost of chips ever lower and functionality ever higher, as predicted by the self-fulfilling trajectory of Moore’s law. Your curve showing the number of transistors bought per dollar illustrates the incredible cost reduction that we had experienced until about 2012, when the curve actually peaks, and then shows costs increasing.

The electronic revolution has been fuelled by the low cost of memory and microprocessor chips because this opened up the possibility of previously inconceivable cost-effective applications.

Although, as you suggest, clever programming and specialised chip designs can still deliver some interesting products, the main cost-reduction driver will no longer be available and this will undoubtedly have a dampening effect on the future rate of change in electronic innovation.

KEN MOYLE
Beaverton, Oregon

I can’t help but think that an “internet of things” will really mean “adverts on everything”.

WARREN CULLY
London

Seeing the numerous mentions of computers based on 1s and 0s in your report reminded me of the T-shirt I saw a few years ago at MIT, my alma mater. On the front: “There are 10 types of people in the world”. And on the back: “Those who understand binary and those who don’t!”

TOM BURNS
Berkeley, California

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