International aid agencies, which during the 1980s and ’90s essentially abandoned support for agriculture and encouraged Africans to develop light industry and services, finally realized the folly of their approach. As the World Bank admitted in late 2007, “Agriculture has been vastly underused for development.”

After decades of mistreatment, abuse, and exploitation, African ­farmers—­still overwhelmingly smallholders working family-tilled plots of land—­are awakening from a long slumber. Because farmers are the majority (about 60 percent) of all sub-Saharan Africans, farming holds the key to reducing poverty and helping to spread prosperity.

Over the longer term, prosperous African farmers could become the backbone of a social and political transformation. They are the sort of canny and independent tillers of the land Thomas Jefferson envisioned as the foundation for American democracy. In a region where elites often seem more committed to enjoying the trappings of success abroad than creating success at home, farmers have a real stake in improving their ­turf. Life will still be hard for them, but in the years ahead they can be expected to demand better government policies and more effective services.

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