ABSTRACT
Economists of underdeveloped countries are beginning to realise that the farmer is no fool. Professor T. W. Schultz's policy conclusion is that 'no appreciable increase in agricultural production is to be had by reallocating the factors at the disposal of farmers who are bound by the traditional agriculture'. Schultz's two main sources of evidence are shot through with perfect competition: Dr. Hopper implicitly, Professor Tax explicitly. Agriculture, as a textbook paradigm of neo-classical perfect competition (NCPC), initially referred to advanced, temperate, monetised and Uterate agricultures. If climatic uncertainty prevails, no resource has a unique marginal physical product (MPP) in any use. Divergence of utility-maximising policy from marginal value-product equalisation (MVPE) policy is a familiar problem of economics. Ploughing is a case of failure to push labour and bullock inputs near the optimum, MVPE or any other. The attack on malaria and yellow fever means that most agricultural communities are increasing their numbers by 2.5 to 3.5 per cent yearly.
