It is one of the strangest paradoxes of my beloved
continent: Africa holds the largest tracts of unconverted arable land and yet
has the highest levels of malnutrition and food insecurity in the world. The result being that Africa is
a net importer of food from countries far less endowed with fertile soils. This
is set against the fact that agriculture is by far the most important employer on
the continent (up to 70% of jobs) and has the greatest potential to lift
Africans out of poverty. How can we reconcile these heart breaking contradictions?
Let’s start with food security….
Most of us tend to think of food security as the ability to produce enough food to meet demand. However, food insecurity in fact has two main dimensions: The one is related to agricultural productivity, the other is socio-economic.
Starting with agricultural productivity: For the most part, Africa has completely missed the so called ‘green revolution’ that saw the modernisation of agriculture and productivity surge in places like Asia, the Americas and Europe (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Agricultural productivity by region
This, set against an Africa with the fastest population
growth rates and the highest urbanisation rates in the world, has quite simply
left a continent with more people to feed and less food being produced per capita. With
Africa’s population set to double to 2 billion in the next 35 years, and
urbanisation rates accelerating, this situation is likely to intensify. High
urbanisation rates pose a further challenge as the geographic distance between
where food is produced and where it is consumed increases. Business as usual is
unlikely to be a viable option.
Importantly from an ecological point of view, whilst yield
improvements have led to a slowing and even reduction of the spatial area under
cultivation elsewhere, low yields in Sub-Saharan Africa have led to a dramatic increase in
the area under cultivation and hence conversion of natural areas to agriculture
(Figure 2). This conversion has a
significant impact on the biodiversity and ecosystem services that these
natural areas provide to the poor, such as water provisioning and fuel wood
etc.
Figure 2: Changes in agricultural productivity
vs Area under cultivation for grains in different regions.
The second dimension to food security is socio-economic. You
see, food security is as much about production
as it is about access. To have
access, you either need to grow the food yourself (i.e. subsistence farming) or
have access to cash to buy it from someone else. Subsistence farming in Africa is a high risk
endeavour; the climate is erratic and crops and livestock are vulnerable to
pests and diseases. In the past societies were far more nomadic and used this strategy
to cope with local climatic variability. Forced into a more sedentary
situation, farmers are left with very few options to mitigate these risks.
Importantly, financial income levels in rural areas remain desperately low,
leaving rural residents with little means to access food from other sources
when crops fail. And so, food insecurity is as much about food production as it
is about economic diversification and income generation in rural areas.
So what about Climate Change?
Climate change, which is largely as a result of fossil-fuel based industrialisation
and wasteful over-consumption of the developed world has left the developing world most
vulnerable to its impacts. Africa, is no exception and predicted climatic
changes will further impair productivity levels of staple crops such as cereals
(Figure 3). Climate variability and
the frequency of natural disasters is also predicted to increase making
ecosystem based adaptation absolutely essential for ameliorating impacts.
Figure 3: Predicted impacts of climate change
on food production in Africa
From threat to global opportunity…
Before we get too disheartened, let’s shift our lens on this
issue…
As a result of an increasing global population and more
specifically the shifting global diet of a growing middle class, the world will
need to produce more food in the next 40 years than it has produced in the last
8,000 years combined. Meeting future food needs seems like an impossible task,
but it is actually quite achievable…at least mathematically… The solution is
threefold: 1) Decreasing global food wastage - which is as high as 50% in many
places; 2) Shifting the diets of the growing middle class away from commodities
that have the highest ecological footprints, such as red meat; and 3) improving
agricultural yields.
Now, to the last point: Africa holds the both the greatest
tracts of uncultivated arable land (more than 200 million hectares) and provides
the greatest opportunities for increased agricultural productivity on existing
agricultural land. Despite this potential, Africa currently contributes only 2%
of global food trade and overall is a net importer of food. Even those segments
of society most cauterised from purview of capitalism, will recognise this as
one the biggest commercial opportunities of our time. Not surprisingly, this
has not gone unnoticed, with foreign investors moving swiftly to get their
hands on these precious productive lands (Figure
4). Many of these land transactions occur under highly unscrupulous
circumstances. This, superimposed on a weak civil society and a community-based land tenure system that is
many cases undocumented, can lead to devastating impacts on the social fabric
of rural communities.
Figure 4: Foreign investments into
agricultural lands in Africa
Bread Basket or Basket case?
Right now Africa has choices, and the choices Africa makes
will determine whether it becomes a bread basket for the world, or a basket
case of missed opportunities and food insecurity. In my view, these choices will
revolve around five main pivot points
1)
Responsible and pro-active modernisation of
Africa’s agriculture sector
Africa has 33 million farms of less than 2 Hectares,
accounting for 85% of all farms on the continent (Figure 5). This is very different from Europe and the Americas and
more similar to Asia.
Figure 5: Farm sizes across the world
Productivity in Africa remains woefully low compared to the
rest of the world, including Asia (Figure 1).
This is a result of a number of factors. Firstly, government budgetary
expenditure on agriculture is around 4% in Africa compared to around 14% in
Asia. This has led to low levels of modernisation, especially in relation to
irrigation (only 6% of crops are irrigated compared to 40% in Asia),
mechanisation (30 tractors per 100 km2 compared to more than 100 in
Asia and 800 for Europe) (Figure 6),
extension support, and the low use of fertilisers, pesticides and modern seeds.
Figure 6: Tractors per 100km2 of
arable land
Clearly modernisation brings with it substantial social and
ecological risks to rural areas. However,
this needs to be balanced against the impacts of uncontrolled conversion of
natural areas to agriculture due to existing low yields and/or uncontrolled ‘land-grab’
style commercialisation that pits large-scale agribusiness interests against
disempowered small-scale farmers. Proactive management of the modernisation of
Africa’s agriculture sector that is able to find the balance between large
scale agribusiness and modernised small-scale producers, will minimise these
risks. Furthermore, being a late-bloomer has its advantages, and Africa has the benefit
of learning from others that have been down this path. If the transition is
managed proactively, Africa should be in a far better position to avoid these
impacts.
2) Empowered Rural Civil Societies
Global agribusiness is dominated by large powerful forces, almost
all of which have considerable interest in Africa as the ‘last frontier’ of agricultural
expansion. Rural communities in Africa are currently ill-equipped to deal with
such forces. Land tenure is often very poorly documented, and communities are
not aware of their rights, or how to engage in development planning and impact
assessment processes. This will need to change if we are to positively shape
Africa’s food revolution.
3)
Creating investor confidence in an African vision
for agriculture in Africa.
Modernisation of Africa’s agriculture sector will require a
significant and broad-based investment. This investment will only come with
investor confidence in a vision for agriculture in Africa that is fit for
purpose on the African continent. Current investment climate is seen as either
being too risky on the one hand or driven largely by opportunism and
self-interest (i.e. the ‘land-grab’ scenario).
Luring the needed broad-based investment into Africa’s
agriculture sector will require the development of a vision that is able to: 1)
Find the delicate mix of large scale commercial agriculture (which helps to
secure lucrative global value chains) blended with small-scale production
(which provide employment, poverty relief and social upliftment in rural
areas); 2) Effectively deal with land ownership and tenure, and 3) Blend public
sector investment into infrastructure with private sector investment in
production and supply chains.
4)
Integrated land-use planning and optimisation of
the ‘spatial economy’
As competing pressures on finite land resources increase,
the importance of solid land-use planning that seeks to optimise Africa’s ‘spatial
economy’ escalates. Simply put, not all land is equal. Land is spatially
heterogeneous and has inherent assets and values. Some areas have very productive
soils, others are critical for their biodiversity, others are important for
water provisioning. In South Africa, WWF has found that just 8% of national
land surface provides more than 50% of South Africa’s water, and that water
supports over 75% of the economy. Clearly the that 8% of South Africa’s land surface
should be managed as a national asset of great value. Optimisation of the
spatial economy therefore requires land-use planning system that cognizant of
the diversity and spatial heterogeneity of values and assets in landscapes.
5)
Building socio-economic and climate resilience in
rural areas
As mentioned earlier, food insecurity is as much about food
production as it is about socio-economic resilience. This includes access to
capital as well as insurance. Only 6% of Africa’s farmers carry any form of
insurance against weather or crop failure, making them extremely vulnerable to
the increased climate volatility. Micro-finance and index-based insurance will
play an important role in building this resilience.
Finally, healthy ecosystems will play a critical
role in reducing the impacts of climate change. Managing and rehabilitating
these ecosystems can both create jobs and financial income in rural areas as
well as reduce climate risks – a double whammy for rural resilience in the face
of climate change. The successful ‘Working for Water’ programme in South Africa
is testament to this, creating over 30,000 jobs whilst at the same time
rehabilitating catchments and releasing much-needed water for sustaining
ecosystems and economic activities in rural areas.
