ABSTRACT
Capital is subordinate to labor and land as a factor of production in traditional agriculture. Farming systems in Africa are never capital-intensive in the sense in which the term is used of advanced agriculture. The asset structure of the traditional holding covers the fixed and movable equipment and, particularly important, improvements to the land. General assets include general-purpose buildings and equipment, usually limited to cultivation tools. All assets are either purchased or constructed by the use of family labor: there are few purchased assets in traditional agriculture. Livestock is treated as a self-contained category which will cover the information required for a full description of livestock enterprises. Livestock, then, gives a closely integrated data category isolated from the main categories because extensive stock keeping in particular is often virtually independent of the crop enterprise and requires almost a special survey investigation.
