DANISH AGRICULTURE

Denmark is a rich, post-industrial country. So it may come as a bit of surprise to know that it is also really good at that most basic of economic activities, namely agriculture.

Figures just released show that in 2011, the country exported agricultural produce worth kr.120 billion (roughly US$16 billion) and had a trade surplus on this account of kr.46 billion (US$6.1 billion, or more than US$1,000 per person). The biggest element of this is pork products, where Denmark is a world leader; but an innocuous element, namely mink pelts, also contributed more than US$1 billion. Overall, more than half of the Danish trade surplus comes from agriculture.

Danish agriculture is highly capital intensive. My father-in-law was an onion farmer, and ran his farm with seven tractors, yet only one other man. In Tanzania, where I lived at the time, the same amount of land would have been cultivated with 100 men and no tractors. If Tanzania had the same level of agricultural productivity as Denmark, then it could probably feed the whole of Africa. But that's another story.

Walter Blotscher