Formation et migration de la main-d’oeuvre rurale en Afrique. L'expérience du Club des jeunes agriculteurs d'Ayou, un projetpilote au Dahomey/Bénin (1967-1975)

Ahohounkpanzon, Michel (2020): Formation et migration de la main-d’oeuvre rurale en Afrique. L'expérience du Club des jeunes agriculteurs d'Ayou, un projetpilote au Dahomey/Bénin (1967-1975). Published in: Chapter 7 Bierschenk, Thomas et Georg Elwert (éditeurs), 1993 : Entwicklungshilfe und ihre Folgen. Ergebnisse empirischer Untersuchungen in Afrika; Frankfurt/New York, Campus Verlag No. ISBN 3-593-34658-3 (1993): pp. 157-181.

Abstract

An integral part of a multidisciplinary research project on Development Aid and its consequences in Africa, this contribution analyzes the experience of training young out-of-school farmers in the village of Ayou (present-day Commune of Allada, Republic of Benin) as part of a development support project funded by FAO and also supported by the US Peace Corps and German volunteers from 1967. If the introduction of young people to modern methods and techniques of agriculture was a success, the integration of end-of-cycle learners into the peasant working life was confronted with an unprecedented peasant agriculture crisis due to the vagaries of the weather and which coincided with the oil boom in Nigeria. In this context, most of the trained youths left the village to sell lottery tickets in Cotonou or to serve as laborers in the cocoa plantations of southern Nigeria. The realities described seem still relevant and allow us to understand the psychology of rural populations. They also make it possible to understand the logic which bases the migrations of the countryside towards the urban centers. Indeed, the problems of rural exodus still persist today. The work highlights the ability of rural populations to innovate and self-destruct, especially in the context of poorly thought out and misguided survival strategies.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: Training and migration of rural labor in Africa. The experience of the Ayou Young Farmers Club, a pilot project in Dahomey / Benin (1967-1975)
• Language: French
• Keywords: Dahomey/Bénin, Ayou (Allada), Rural Youths; Training, Agricultural modernization; Rural exodus.
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M5 - Personnel Economics > M53 - Training; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O32 - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Biofuels ; Agricultural Extension Services; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z18 - Public Policy

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