Agriculture in Africa:  Much food for thought…and action

(Published in Trade & Invest Africa, February 2015 )

By Stef Terblanche

Agriculture, nutrition and food security in Africa have become major talking points on the continent and around the world.

In fact, such a big issue has it become that last year was declared the African Union Year of Agriculture and Food Security. And heads of African states attending the 23rd African Union Summit adopted what is known as the ‘Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods’.

There to help turn this important political commitment into meaningful action was the 2014 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) which brought together in Addis Ababa some 1,000 leaders of governments, agri-businesses, farmers’ organisations and more to generate the required strategies. And much more.

No wonder. Africa is after all a continent that has seen its fair share of famine, droughts, food shortages and malnutrition. But it also has immense potential to feed a hungry world, say the experts.

Needless to say, the sceptics will ponder the question: is this all just a lot of hot air, or can Africa really put the food on the table?

Here are some of the facts.

·         Africa’s population is set to increase from its present 1.1 billion to 2.4 billion by 2050.

·         214 million sub-Saharan Africans currently face some type of food crisis.

·         200 million Africans are chronically malnourished.

·         5 million Africans die each year as a result of hunger.

·         Africa has more unexploited arable land than any other continent.

·         500 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa depend on 3.46 billion acres of community held farmland.

·         Africa is making slower progress in achieving international hunger-reduction targets than other regions.

·         More than 65% of all Africans are employed in the agricultural sector.

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·         The majority of sub-Saharan Africa's food is produced by small-scale farmers.

·         Small-scale farmers are being pushed off their land as governments and companies from food-importing countries target Africa for their own needs.

It was with this grim picture in mind that the 23rd AU Summit adopted the Malabo Declaration last year. Like the African Green Revolution Forum it focused on how to deliver agriculture-led economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa, establish food security and improve nutritional quality across the continent.

Through the Malabo Declaration the African heads of states adopted a remarkably ambitious set of concrete goals to be reached by 2025, among its aims  the doubling of food productivity and halving  poverty.

But was it all talk and no action at the AU Summit? Jeske van Seters, Deputy Head of Programme Food Security at the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) on her blog lists what she calls “three key takeaways from the summit”.

First, she says, contrary to opinions that summit themes “are empty shells and hardly accompanied by an intensive agenda” the heads of states adopted a “remarkably ambitious set of concrete goals to be reached by 2025”.

“Perhaps most importantly a set of new goals showing a more targeted approach focusing on employment, post harvest losses, climate smart agriculture were agreed,” says Van Seters.

“The focus broadened beyond spending and production, with concrete targets for 2025 such as reducing post harvest losses by half, creating job opportunities for at least 30% of the youth in agricultural value chains and ensuring that at least 30% of farm, pastoral and fisher households will be resilient to climate and weather related risks. Much attention also goes out to improving the functioning of agricultural markets and intra-African trade, with an ambitious goal to triple intra-African trade in agricultural commodities.”

But, as Van Seters also points out, progress in achieving previous ambitious targets set by African leaders a decade ago in the context of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has been slow.

Back then they undertook to allocate at least 10% of public spending to agriculture and achieve 6% annual agricultural growth. But most AU member states have failed to put this into practice so far and since 2003 only 13 countries have met or surpassed the 10% public spending target in one or more years. While overall agricultural production has increased, it remained well below the annual 6% growth target.

What could make the difference this time around, is referred to in Van Seter’s second “takeaway”. That is the considerable emphasis that was placed at the Summit on “agriculture as a business, with calls for increasing private sector investments and value addition”.

“The leaders committed to creating a more enabling environment for private investment in agriculture, agri-business and agro-industries.”

A specification that priority will be given to local investors appears to be in response to the concerns  of civil society organisations that condemn a situation where the primary focus is on foreign direct investments as an engine for agricultural growth and transformation, says Van Seter.

Furthermore, the African leaders also propose to establish and strengthen public-private partnerships ‘with strong linkage to smallholder agriculture’.

"Africa's smallholder farmers produce the vast majority of food grown on the continent and they are the backbone of a sector that employs more than 65% of all Africans," says the chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Strive Masiyiwa. AGRA, founded in 2006 through a partnership between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, works in partnership across the African continent to help small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger.

“Importantly, rather than a choice between large scale farming and agri-businesses versus small-scale farmers and small and medium enterprises, they will co-exist,” comments Van Seters.

The third “takeaway” listed by Van Seters is that the Malabo Declaration asks the AU Commission and NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) to develop an implementation strategy and roadmap that facilitates translation of the 2025 vision and goals into reality, thus putting words into action.

But it is going to be a very difficult balancing act to find the right kind of equilibrium between small-scale farming, commercial farming for domestic consumption and large-scale farming driven by foreign agri-businesses with an export focus. Ethiopia may be a good case in point.

It is a country that in recent decades frequently made international headlines with periodic famine and acute malnutrition, especially among its children. It is also a country with vast tracts of potential agricultural land. Yet, instead of growing crops for home consumption, the government of Ethiopia is leasing millions of hectares to foreign companies that grow and export food to their home countries and other markets such as China, India, Saudi Arabia and countries in Europe.

In one example some two-thirds of western Ethiopia’s Gambela region is being leased by the Karuturi Global food company based in Bangalore, India, for the next 50 years. The other third of the region is covered by a national park. Whole villages are being moved away, forests are being cleared, livestock driven out, rivers diverted and swamps drained….all to make way for producing flowers, rice and palm oil for export. Ethiopia’s government claims it is in the interest of creating jobs, developing agricultural technology, and generating income from food exports.

It is a scenario that is increasingly playing itself out in many other African countries too, among them Mozambique, Liberia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan. While soybeans, maize and other food crops are grown for export, often agricultural land is now being used for the production of biofuels or other such non-nutrition focused crops.

“Africa is seen as underperforming and in control of valuable resources that capital seeks for profitable purposes,” says the African Centre for Biosafety . “Africa is seen as a possible new frontier to make profits, with an eye on land, food and biofuels in particular.”

The centre says land grabbing in Africa is intensifying and spreading. It says NGOs estimate that in eastern Africa alone, 310 land deals have been completed since 2000. All of which underpins why the Malabo Declaration calls for a more balanced and sustainable approach.

But there are many other obstacles too. African small-scale farmers lack knowledge, experience or funds to improve their yields. Many governments have support and funding programmes on paper only. And many African farmers, farming in set ways for many generations, are often suspicious of new technology, farming methods and new partners.

Rob Bailey  Research Director, Energy, Environment and Resources at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) says increasing agricultural productivity and adapting farming to climate change are central to Africa’s development prospects.

“There are important opportunities to enhance yields and increase resilience through the adoption of improved crop varieties.”

He mentions the example of biotechnology, and in particular genetic modification (GM), that offer advantages over conventional plant-breeding approaches.

“Multiple barriers inhibit the development and adoption of pro-poor GM varieties in Africa. On the demand side, farmers may be reluctant to adopt GM varieties owing to a lack of export opportunities and distrust of the technology among local consumers. Farmers may also be concerned about exploitation by transnational seed companies, despite the fact that development of new GM technologies in Africa is dominated by the public sector,” says Bailey.

“On the supply side, donor funding struggles to match the long timescales of research and development, while incentives among research scientists may be poorly aligned with farmer outcomes. Non-existent, poorly functioning or overly punitive regulatory regimes discourage investment.”

In the longer term it will be a question of which outweighs the other: suspicion, barriers and exploitation, or opportunity, partnerships and a new spirit of commitment as presented in the Malabo Declaration. The point is, Africa cannot afford to postpone.