THE GROWTH AND DECLINE OF A MECHANICAL AGRICULTURE SCHEME IN WEST AFRICA
研究了塞拉利昂一项大型机械化耕作计划25年间的兴起与失败，发现其崩溃并非技术或农民落后所致，而是源于首都及资本主义世界体系中的决策。
THIS ARTICLE describes the beginnings, development and failure after 25 years of a large scale mechanical cultivation scheme in Sierra Leone, West Africa. An examination of the decline shows that it was not due to technical factors, either mechanical or agricultural, peculiar to the tropics. There were, of course, from the beginning trials and experiments to find the most suitable equipment and techniques but this is typical of agricultural mechanization anywhere. Nor could failure be attributed to large scale mechanical operations being inappropriate in an undeveloped local social and economic context seen as consisting of technologically ignorant and backward peasants. On the contrary, the farmers responded rationally and effective new institutions emerged. The scheme collapsed not because of its incompatibilities in the area of its operations but because of its origins and what was considered appropriate in the capital, Freetown, and ultimately in the capitalist world system.