SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L’ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 1153

It is quite likely that improved quality of inputs and a
change in the production function (technological change)
usually occur together. In an underdeveloped economy the
most important input — as measured by the share of the total
product paid to it — is labor. Fortunately, labor is an input
whose quality can be changed by well known procedures. Unfortunately,
 these procedures involve the expenditure of significant
 amounts of scarce resources. But the history of Japan
from 1870 through 1gr0 indicates that a poor country, with
very limited natural resources, can organize its resources to
provide for nearly universal education for the farm population,
for agricultural research, and for education of the adult farm
population in new and improved methods of production.
There is now rather general agreement among competent
scientists that the technological possibilities for increasing food
output in the low income areas are very substantial. Many
of the low income areas — Africa, Latin America, and Southeast
 Asia — have room for substantial expansion of the cultivated
 areas. But some of the most densely populated areas
— India and China, for example — are not in this fortunate
position. Again reference may be had to the Japanese experience.
 Japan at the time substantial economic progress began
had little possibility of increasing the sown area. In the half
century from 1881-90 to 1931-40 the cultivated area of six
major crops in Japan increased by only 18% (}). However,
vields increased by 66% and production by 95%.
The excellent Report on India’s Food Crisis and Steps to
Meet It prepared by the Ford Foundation team clearly indicates
 that it is technically possible to substantially increase food
production in India (3). Once of the major conclusions of the

(') Bruce F. Jounson, Agricultural Development and Economic Transformation:
 Japan, Taiwan and Denmark ,Mimeo., 1960, p. 28.
(?) Published by the Government of India, Ministry of Food and Agriculture
 and Ministry of Community Development and Cooperation, April
1959. The chairman of the team was Mr. Sherman Johnson of the United
States Department of Agriculture

116] Johnson - pag. 15%