The Economist - USA (2019-09-28)

(Antfer) #1

16 Leaders The EconomistSeptember 28th 2019


2 a flexible schedule; the high cost for firms of maintaining office
space; and the countervailing desire to gather skilled workers in
one place, in the hope that this enhances collaboration.
People who work at home or in a Starbucks have no need for a
stressful commute and can adjust their hours to suit their way of
life. In turn, that flexibility lets companies cut down on space.
Our analysis of 75 large listed services firms in America and Brit-
ain shows that annual rental costs per employee have dropped
by 15% over the past 15 years, to $5,000. Many firms operate a hot-
desking system where workers find a new seat every day. At the
London offices of Deloitte, a consultancy, 12,500 people have ac-
cess to the building but only 5,500 desks are available.
But hot-desking can be alienating (see Bartleby). Every night,
workers must erase all trace of their existence, hiding away their
possessions. When crammed into desks sited close together,
workers wear headphones to shut out noisy neighbours. Studies
suggests this leads to more emails and less face-to-face commu-
nication. So much for collaboration and camaraderie.
High-skilled workers can be repelled by these conditions. So
the hot-desking drive has been accompanied by a countervailing

trend, in which this elite get better facilities. Those who need to
concentrate have quiet spaces. Better lighting and air condition-
ing aim to keep employees healthy. Apple’s new headquarters
has parks, a meadow and a 1,000-person auditorium. The hope is
that when workers mingle or relax, that will spark ideas.
All this looks like a shift towards an airline-style world of
work, with economy seating for the drones and business-class
luxury for skilled workers, who enjoy some of the benefits once
reserved for senior executives. But this is a hard trade-off to get
right. WeWork offers a “premium economy” service in which a
wider range of workers can get a few perks. But fears that its rent-
al income may be insufficient to offset its $47bn of lease liabil-
ities were one reason its ipowas delayed.
The office is bound to change further. Some firms may ask if it
makes sense to have offices in city centres. In an era of remote
collaboration, software and documents sit in the cloud and of-
fices could disperse to cheaper places. Mr Neumann’s business
plan is in tatters. But one of his insights is surely right: the office
of the mid-21st century will be as different from today’s as the
high-tech factory is from the Victorian mill. 7

A


century agoAmerican crop scientists began experiment-
ing with the plant known there as corn, and elsewhere as
maize. They discovered that by crossing two inbred strains they
could create seeds that would consistently grow better than ei-
ther of the parent plants. It was the beginning of a seed revolu-
tion. By the 1940s American agricultural productivity was shoot-
ing up; by the 1960s Asia had joined the race, thanks to improved
varieties of rice and wheat.
In most of the world, the green revolution continues. Open an
American seed catalogue today and you will see dozens of variet-
ies of each plant, many of them labelled “new” to show that they
have been released or improved somehow just in the past year.
But on one continent, it never quite hap-
pened. African farmers still tend to use open-
pollinated seeds held back from the previous
year’s crop or commercial hybrids that were de-
veloped years ago. That’s one of the main rea-
sons for the continent’s chronically low produc-
tivity. The average field planted with
maize—Africa’s most important crop, which
supplies 30% of people’s calories in some coun-
tries—yields a third as much as a Chinese maize fieldofthesame
size and just a fifth as much as an American one.
The problem is not a paucity of science. Although crop re-
search in Africa is not as well funded as it is in rich countries,
there is enough public and private investment to ensure a stream
of new seeds to suit local soils and climates. Nor is the problem
ideology. African governments have mostly ignored the argu-
ments, from some charities, that old-fashioned farming is best
and that wicked, profit-seeking seed firms should be barred.
They know that modern seeds make farming more productive.
The problem is that government policies prevent farmers
from getting good seeds. Many insist on lengthy field trials and

obstruct the approval of seeds that have already been certified for
planting elsewhere. As a result, those on the market are always
several years behind the scientific cutting edge. It need not be so.
Zambia has liberalised its certification system, including by al-
lowing seed companies to inspect themselves. In the past two
decades, maize productivity there has doubled.
Although Africa’s governments have mostly got out of the
seed-production business, governments often subsidise seeds
and former state monopolies still dominate the seed trade (see
Middle East & Africa section). They flood markets with seeds that
are often of poor quality or unsuited to local conditions, crowd-
ing out more efficient private distributors with better goods.
It is not a bad idea for governments to subsi-
dise seeds to persuade farmers to try productive
varieties for the first time. But that should be the
limit. State resources would be better spent on
research, on tackling counterfeit seeds—a big
problem in many countries—or on educating
farmers about how to use improved seeds and
fertiliser. Ethiopia, though not a paragon of
market openness, has done that well. Its maize
fieldsarenow almost twice as productive as the African average.
The bravest governments could also relax the bans that al-
most all have imposed on genetically modified crops. Their cau-
tion is hardly unusual. gmcrops are permitted in some other
places, but only on the assumption that they would be fed to live-
stock. In Africa they would be eaten by people. And many of the
European countries that Africa exports to are hostile to gmcrops.
But genetic technology is often the quickest route to seeing off
the pests and diseases that afflict the continent more than other
parts of the world, and is the best way of producing seeds that
will flourish in a changing climate. Who says that Africa should
always be the last to innovate? 7

Bureaucratic herbicide


Africa’s farmers need better seeds. Governments are getting in their way

Agriculture

Maize yield
Tonnes perhectare

1961 70 80 90 17102000

10

5

0

Africa

North America
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