Labor productivity in an economy can be improved either within sectors (e.g. through technological gains and capital accumulation) or structurally (e.g. by shifting labor out of lessproductive activities and into more-productive activities). During the 1990s, African labor entered agriculture rather than exiting it, thereby suppressing overall labor productivity growth (McMillan and Rodrik 2011). Since 2000, labor productivity growth within agriculture has accelerated in Eastern and Southern Africa, and in Nigeria (Pardey 2014; Block 2013). Decomposition of recent labor productivity growth trends suggests that labor exits from agriculture explain about half of recent overall labor productivity growth across Africa (McMillan and Harttgen 2014; McMillan, Rodrik, and Verduzco 2014). These recent favorable trends are also reflected in national accounts and per capita consumption data, and have become known as the “African growth miracle” (e.g., Young 2012).

From a structural change perspective, Sub-Saharan Africa still lags behind other regions of the world. Nevertheless, African countries seem to be following the same patterns of agricultural labor exits as those previously followed by countries in other regions (McMillan and Harttgen 2014). However, African structural change pathways differ from those in Asia and Latin America in that the services sector, which is characterized by relatively low productivity in African countries, has been a primary recipient of labor exiting from agriculture (Rodrik 2014). In other regions, industrialization has been core to the structural change process. High levels of informality in the industry and services sectors has lowered their average productivity and suppressed the gains to be exploited from agricultural exits. In Vietnam, important productivity gains resulted not only by shifting labor out of agriculture, but also by shifting labor into formal, higher-productivity firms within the industrial sector (McCaig and Pavcnik 2013).

Because agricultural labor shares are still so large in African countries, the potential gains from reallocating labor to higher-productivity sectors is believed to be very high (McMillan and Headey 2014). A large initial agricultural labor share, rising female education, rising commodity prices, good governance, and agricultural productivity growth all appear to be positively correlated with labor exits from agriculture (McMillan and Harttgen 2014). Poor market infrastructure, heterogeneous and difficult agroclimatic conditions, and generally unfavorable policy enabling environments all pose challenges to labor productivity growth in African agriculture. Nevertheless, in the many African economies that are landlocked and poor in natural resources, agricultural labor productivity growth probably provides the only pathway towards economic growth and poverty reduction (Dercon 2009).

Labor is one of several important factors in agricultural production, which also relies on land, capital, and other inputs. Intensification of agricultural labor use can be driven by land scarcity (e.g., high population pressure) or by capital scarcity (e.g., high interest rates). Historically, growing population pressure has been associated with more intensive agricultural systems characterized by reduced frequency and length of fallow periods on agricultural land (Ruthenberg 1971; Pingali, Bigot, and Binswanger 1987). Intensive systems typically use higher labor inputs per unit of land for tasks such as land preparation, soil fertility management, water management, weeding, harvesting, and long term improvements in land quality.

In aggregate, agricultural labor productivity grew slower than agricultural land productivity between 1961 and 2010 in Africa, which implies some intensification of African agriculture with 2