FOOD production in sub-Saharan Africa must rise by 50% to feed an estimated population of 1.3-billion by 2030, a leading management consultant group says.
Investment of about $93bn a year is needed to develop the infrastructure required to support the region’s agricultural sector, according to Grant Hatch, MD of strategy and sustainability at Accenture South Africa.
"Failing to address production to meet growing demand has potentially dire consequences for many African countries; the challenge is to break dependence on resource exports and food imports," he said.
Agriculture accounts for more than one-third of the region’s economic output and two-thirds of its employment, but this is mainly in the form of subsistence farming, which provides rural livelihoods but not food self-sufficiency, he says.
Mr Hatch was speaking ahead of the release of an Accenture report which shows that food production in sub-Saharan Africa has lagged other developing regions in the world, leading to widespread food insecurity.
The topic is likely to be discussed at a World Economic Forum on Africa gathering in Cape Town this week.
"I think certainly the situation is worrying in many ways — a large number of sub-Saharan African countries are either not secure or are only marginally secure," says Council for Scientific and Industrial Research ecologist Graham von Maltitz.
According to an index compiled by Accenture, 12 sub-Saharan Africa countries are severely affected by food security problems. These include Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique and Lesotho. It shows only four countries in the region have high food security — SA, Gabon, Angola and Nigeria.
Investment in African agriculture in the past two decades has been "exceptionally low" and governments in the region have not provided the kind of support for the sector seen in many other parts of the world, Mr Von Maltitz says.
The situation is ironic as sub-Saharan Africa has 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. It imports an average of $50bn of food annually.
"There are a multitude of factors behind this — the biggest single factor is we haven’t as a continent engaged with the green revolution, agricultural technology," he says.
Mr Von Maltitz is referring mainly to the use of modern fertilisers, although up-to-date irrigation, mechanisation and scientific farming techniques are also factors. Africa has 13 tractors per 100km², far below the global average of 200, according to Accenture.
Yields on staple crops such as maize, rice, groundnuts and sorghum in sub-Saharan Africa are only one-third to two-thirds of the global average, Mr Hatch says. Grain yields generally are 40% lower than those in the rest of the developing world.
Another alarming fact is that in the 40 years to 2010, per capita world food production grew 17%, while in Africa it fell 10%, as population growth outstripped agricultural output. One of the big problems faced by African farmers is the steep cost of transport, which means that African farmers pay two to six times the global cost of fertilisers, Mr Hatch says.
Water scarcity is a challenge which will become more severe in the years ahead. At present, eight sub-Saharan African countries are suffering from lack of water and that number will increase to 18 by 2025, affecting 600-million Africans, he says.
Conflicts on the continent are another big issue, having cost the region an estimated $120bn worth of agricultural production in the past 30-odd years. Luckily these have begun to subside, Mr Hatch says.
Several things need to happen to address the issue of food security on the continent. Governments have to ensure that the correct policies are in place — tariffs, the tax regime and incentives to encourage the private sector to invest in agriculture, Mr Hatch says.
The private sector, universities and nongovernmental organisations should help to provide modern farming skills to the people, he says.
Africa’s small-scale subsistence farmers have to evolve into small-scale farmers and then medium-scale commercial producers. Large companies need to set up large-scale commercial production.
"The challenge is how to integrate those two models," Mr Hatch says.
Food security is closely entwined with poverty — food could be available but may be unaffordable for many people in the region.
Original Article Here
No comments:
Post a Comment