As already emphasised in the Introduction, there is a crying need for the systematic categorisation of broad types of rural under-development in the contemporary, tropical, third world – for a respectable typology of agrarian systems. The main purpose of this book is to identify one of these types in terms both of the conditions necessary for its existence and the main consequences which flow from them.

My approach is necessarily experimental. My idea is to test the hypothesis that a system, which I denote a dry grain mode, has recently come into existence in two very densely populated (and populous) tropical regions where unirrigated grains (millets and sorghums) are the basic crop and where certain other conditions are satisfied. As this hypothetical dry grain mode in no wise resembles a mode of production in any neo-marxian sense, I have been strongly urged to employ less provocative terminology. But, after prolonged thought and discussion, I can find no alternative set of words which will convey the idea that my formulation is intended as a model with potential application to similarly situated rural economies in other tropical regions, not only in northern Hausaland and south-eastern Karnataka.

I cannot sufficiently emphasise that this particular dry grain mode is certain to be one of several such – but not one of many, for our aim must be large-scale classification.