The experience of developed countries in the development of agro-industry. Abstract

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
Because of the great variety of the industries using agricultural raw materials, it is difficult to generalize about their characteristics. It is desirable, however, to examine the main characteristics of these industries (especially in comparison with those using non-agricultural raw materials) in relation to their suitability for establishment in the developing countries.
In most of these countries, agricultural raw materials and unskilled labour are the only production factors in abundant supply. The most suitable industries for establishment in such conditions are those that maximize total output and returns to the scarce factors in combination with as much as possible of the abundant raw materials and unskilled labour.
Few, if any, industries may be expected to fulfil these requirements completely. Indeed, a review of some of the main characteristics of different industries in relation to their suitability for establishment in developing countries indicates that most industries combine both advantages and disadvantages in this respect. Thus, in considering the suitability of an industry, favourable and unfavourable factors must be weighed carefully against one another in the context of the conditions in a particular country or area. Furthermore, the potential advantages can be realized only if the industry is efficiently operated..
Nevertheless it does appear that many of the industries using agricultural raw materials have characteristics that make them particularly suitable for the circumstances of developing countries. Many of them have a lower capital intensity than other industries and their need
CONCLUSIONS
The general trend in the international pineapple market is declining profits. The increase in global supply combined with increased in-ternational competition caused a drop in the price of MD2 and a decrease in its profitability. In order to remain profitable, Ghanaian producer-exporters will have to increase pro-ductivity and achieve the right economies of A new strategy for the pineapple export industry is needed, but even then it is un-likely that pineapple will drive growth in Ghana’s nascent horticulture export sector. The future of the sector seems to lie in developing competitive advantages in other horticulture exports. The pineapple export industry laid a foundation on which there have been other investments in processed products for export (such as fresh cut, juiced, and dried) as well aas investments in producing other tropical fruits and Asian vegetables for export. However, production and export of these other products remain on a small scale, and supply chains are unorganized and occur largely in an institutional vacuum. African countries in general are characterized by massive deficiencies in the general business environment: lack of infrastructure, access to finance, skilled labour. However, African governments cannot provide broad-based support to all economic activities in an industry-neutral way due to the specificity and complexity of the requisite publicly provided inputs; solutions have to fit the specifics of the context (Hausmann & Rodrik 2006). Thus, governments must make choices; they must target support and tailor it to specific industries, both in terms of affecting the economic environment as well as encouraging technological capabili-ties development. Strategic state engagement targeting specific industries, and its success, has certain requirements. Such requisites include tech-nocrats which shared a heuristic understand-ing of the industry with industry actors and which had strong political support; convergenceof interests among state officials, politicians and industry actors, and open channels of communication among them; and the ability of the technocrats to monitor industry performance, provide incentives and enforce penalties.These requisites were not present in the Ghana case. In Ghana, the various groups of actors (state, politicians, industry, donors) had interests that did not converge in a way that supported the development of technological capabilities among the producer-exporters. Underlying these requisites is a funda-mentally political element. While we know how the state can engage to build tech-nological capabilities, why they choose to do so and do so successfully is less under-stood. This underlying politics of developing capabilities deserves further research through studying cases of particular indus-tries where governments, especially African governments, have engaged successfully in building capabilities.