The idea that rural Africans are self-sufficient subsistence farmers who grow what they eat and eat what they grow was only ever partly true. But it is becoming less relevant with each passing year. Rural regions across African states are in the midst of a long transformation, as populations rise and markets thicken. Rural economies are becoming more unequal. Land and labor are increasingly bought and sold. People are better educated and more connected than before.
While everything else is in flux, one thing has barely changed: agricultural productivity. The amount of food that African farmers can coax from their fields is rising only slowly, or in some places not at all. Growing numbers of people no longer have enough land to make a living. They could not subsist by farming even if they wanted to.
The signs of this transformation are evident everywhere: in the smoke of brick kilns and the roar of motorcycles, the hum of gold mines and the bustle of trading centers, all of which now permeate the countryside. An obvious question is whether the changes are driven by poverty or prosperity. The answer is both, singly at different times and in different places, but often side by side. The remaking of the African countryside is not just about how people relate to the land, but how they relate to each other.