Addressing Africa’s Food Insecurity

Sub-Saharan Africa faces specific and complex challenges, the number of hungry people in the continent rose to over 240 million last year 2019 and over 40% of children less than five years old are stunted due to malnutrition.

Africa's population is expected to almost double by 2050, bringing it to almost 2 billion people. Based on present trends, the current African food production system would be able to meet only 13% of the continent's needs by 2050.

Challenges

Food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa is caused by more than just inadequate access to agricultural machinery, however. Population growth, weak institutions and rule of law (particularly in relation to land ownership), poor infrastructure, increasingly unpredictable and volatile weather patterns, weak international trade links, limited storage facilities, food loss and waste, pestilence, disease and economic instability have also taken a toll.

While better access to agricultural technologies could ameliorate some of those factors, it will prove insufficient to overcome all of the social, political and economic challenges that also affect regional food security.

Low agricultural productivity is often cited as the main cause of food insecurity across the region; crop yields are 44 per cent lower than the international average. Lifting farm productivity is therefore seen as the main way to improve food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Most African countries do not have food self-sufficiency, thus imports are essential to feed their ever-growing populations. It should also be noted that intra-regional trade is very low in Africa, particularly in the agriculture sector, which is often attributed to the complexity of trading and logistics with neighboring countries. Agricultural supply chains can be extremely complex and fragmented, particularly in African countries.

The lack of modern tools is one of the main impediments to increased agricultural productivity in Africa and is one of the reasons that it has been a net importer of food since the 1970s. The scarcity of machinery across the food production system, from field preparation to sowing, harvest, post-harvest storage, processing, transport and retail, makes Sub-Saharan Africa’s food security considerably more vulnerable than that of the rest of the world.

While some African governments have attempted to raise agricultural productivity by increasing access to fertilizers and improved seeds, with variable success, agricultural mechanization has received less attention.

Despite this urgent need, African crop yields have been largely stagnant over the past 50 years. Less than 4% of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. Almost three-quarters of its soils are degraded due to years of planting crops without replacing nutrients; fertilizer use is by far the lowest in the world with most farmers unable to afford it.

Decades of research have led to substantially improved understanding of the nature of food insecurity. A combination of economic growth and targeted programs resulted in a steady fall (until the food crisis of 2007/08) in the percentage of the world’s population suffering from under nutrition (from 20% in 1990/92 to 16% in 2006).

Yet over a billion people still face both chronic and/or transitory food insecurity due to long-standing problems of inadequate income, low-productivity in agricultural production and marketing, and related problems of poor health and absence of clean water.

Assuring adequate food security for such a large share of the world’s population is increasingly challenging due to continuing resource degradation driven by a combination of population pressure and outdated agricultural practices, poorly functioning input markets, rapid urbanization, increased concerns about food safety, and climate change.

Summary

The size of the food and agribusiness sector is growing rapidly in Africa and could grow to a trillion-dollar market by 2030. It is expected that this expanding market opportunity will encourage more of the large local and international players to go into agriculture-related businesses. What is important though is that larger companies develop partnerships with smallholder farmers, as they are the key to unlocking Africa’s agricultural potential.

 In addition to making significant contribution to national socio-economic development, it makes good business sense for big companies to share access to markets, technology, and knowledge to help smallholder farmers turn their subsistence farms into profitable businesses.

Food security occurs when all people, at all times, have access to enough food to meet their dietary needs. To declare countries “food secure” I look at a combination of availability, access and utilization.

Mauritius, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia and Senegal are among the top 10 most food-secure countries on the continent. This is attributed to the use of new crops and agricultural production technologies.

But ultimately the ability to achieve food security depends on political will and the effectiveness of government and national strategies in the agricultural and food sector.

Innovation and technology

Though the 2018 rise in food insecurity is disheartening, some African countries have made progress over the last decade. And there were some new recent initiatives that deserve a special mention for the precedents they set, countries recorded improved food production because of modern technologies provided by governments, aid agencies or entrepreneurs. These included:

The adoption of improved seed varieties, Modern equipment, and fertilizers or better practices such as conservation agriculture.

In Ethiopia, for instance, farmers increased wheat yields by 14% as a result of newer agricultural technologies.

In Rwanda, farmers reported increased productivity due to solar-powered irrigation technology.

In Nigeria, increased agricultural productivity was linked to the use of smart and affordable tractors by smallholder farmers.

And in Kenya, the practice of conservation agriculture has taken root, resulting in bigger yields. Equally important are the growing number of innovations in financing. To improve productivity, and achieve food security, farmers must be able to invest in technology.

But, many African farmers live below the poverty line. They can rarely borrow from formal financial institutions as they don’t have collateral. Today, only 6% of total bank credit on the continent goes to agriculture.

Tanzania addressed this challenge by rolling out a toolkit that allows farmers to pre-pay for discounted agricultural inputs using mobile money. Farmers are also provided with customized plans that guide them on how to maximize crop yields.

New policies

Several African countries have strengthened and launched new agricultural policies. These will play a key role in improving food security. For example, policies can lower the cost of agricultural input prices by introducing subsidies. Or they can allocate resources in a way that benefit farmers – like road construction for market access.

The Nigerian government deserves mention for some key initiatives it introduced. For starters recently it launched the National Policy on Food and Nutrition which allocated 92 billion Naira (US $290 million) to the agricultural sector. Policies were also enacted that gave farmers access to agricultural inputs and provided them with modern equipment at subsidized prices. One example is a a fertilizer initiative that delivered over 4 million bags of fertilizers to farmers at affordable prices. This meant more farmers could buy fertilizer, giving them bigger yields.

In terms of areas of policy areas, 2019 turned out to be a good year for irrigation.

So, even though the number of food insecure in Africa has risen this year, discovering effective new technologies and policies that work is important for the future. This year, these gains were in targeted government interventions and the adoption of modern agricultural technologies. This allowed farmers to improve productivity, allowing African countries to make progress in the quest to attain food security

Only 7% of Africa is irrigated. In Nigeria’s case the potential irrigable area is 21 million hectares (about the size of Italy) – with only 200,000 hectares currently irrigated. This year the Nigerian government completed irrigation projects covering over 33,000 hectares of land. Things are set to improve even further following a World Bank announcement that it’s investing US $495 million in irrigation.

Meanwhile in Rwanda the government has made a commitment to intensify irrigation initiatives to help citizens cope with climate change. Over 44,000 ha of land would be developed with formal irrigation infrastructure – that’s about 82,000 football fields.

In Malawi, the government launched a similar initiative which would put over 100,000 hectares of land across the country under irrigation – about 187,000 football fields.

Because irrigation improves food security, these initiatives will continue to play a vital role in moving towards food security.

Analysis

Agriculture is the starting point for wider economic development and poverty reduction, particularly in countries where the vast majority of the population works in the agricultural sector. A focus on improving the technology used by smallholder farmers, who operate on less than two hectares of land and account for 70 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s workforce, will build the foundation for further economic development.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been slow to adopt mechanized agriculture and 60 to 80 percent of the cultivated land is worked manually, without the use of animals or mechanical tools. That was not always the case, however, as Africa was once at the forefront of agricultural mechanization in the developing world. In 1960, for instance, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania each had more tractors in use than India.

The fact that India now has 100 times more tractors in use than those three countries combined gives some indication of just how far Africa has fallen behind. It is also estimated that tractors are only used on ten per cent of the land currently cultivated in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 20 per cent in East Asia, 35 per cent in South Asia, 50 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 60 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa. The slow uptake of agricultural machinery in Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the reasons for its slow progress in improving food security.

International development organizations have only recently begun to rekindle their interest in mechanization after a 30-year focus on other challenges. Farm mechanization programmes that operated from the 1960s to the 1980s produced mixed results at best. While in some cases they improved farm productivity, in many others they failed due to a lack of access to spare parts and skilled labour.

Mechanization programmes also have the potential to widen wealth inequality. Large-scale farming operations can afford to purchase and maintain machinery, but smallholder farmers struggle to do likewise. Medium- and large-scale farmers, who have landholdings greater than five hectares, are in the best position to mechanize first. If those farmers offer to rent their machinery to those who are unable to afford their own, then those disparities could be reduced.

Alternatively, smallholder farmers might be able to afford simpler, less expensive machines. Two-wheel tractors, which are cheaper to purchase and easier to maintain, are seen as a more appropriate tool for smallholders. These devices, while simple, are an improvement on the hand tools that are still used by a majority of smallholders.

As mechanization reduces the labour requirements of farm operations, it could also reduce the number of employment opportunities available to unskilled labourers. Most of the 30 mechanization programmes established in Sub-Saharan Africa prior to 1980 failed because of a lack of access to spare parts, operators and service technicians.

Agricultural mechanization could create new service and maintenance employment opportunities, if training centres are provided as part of the mechanization process. Those centres could also provide the transferable skills necessary for the economic diversification into industry that could provide jobs for the large youth population that will soon reach employment age.

There are a number of environmental concerns related to the adoption of agricultural machines. Mechanized agriculture was a factor in the creation of the dust bowls that affected the US in the 1930s. In Africa, soils are susceptible to erosion due to shallow topsoils and heavy rainfall.

Excessive tillage or the improper use of conventional tillage implements (such as disc or mould board ploughs), can over-expose soils to rain and wind erosion. Conventional tillage implements are widely used in Sub-Saharan Africa, but large-scale farms are increasingly adopting conservation agriculture practices and technologies, which aim to minimize soil disturbance.

Smallholders are also being encouraged to practice conservation agriculture. If mechanization is to be successful in the long term, efforts will need to be made to ensure that the most appropriate tools and methods are made available to all African farmers.

Land expansion is another environmental concern that needs to be addressed. Mechanization in the US and Brazil increased farm production by expanding the amount of natural land converted to crop. On the other hand, mechanization could reduce the need to clear new land for agriculture as already existing cropland could be made more productive.

China`s Influence towards securing food security in Africa

Chinese companies are the main suppliers of agricultural machinery in Sub-Saharan Africa and they are more likely to receive state support in exporting their equipment than companies based elsewhere. Indian tractor manufacturers, however, also see the region as a desirable export market and aim to significantly increase their presence there.

The involvement of China in African agricultural development has led to the idea that Beijing aims to exploit the continent for its own self-interest. That notion has some validity, but not in the way that is often articulated.

Claims that China has taken control of large amounts of agricultural land (up to six million hectares, or one per cent of all the farmland in Africa), have contributed to the notion of Africa as China’s “second continent”. Those claims have been vastly overstated, however, and it is more likely that China has only acquired about four per cent of that amount.

 It is questionable how much influence it gains from that trade. China sees African agricultural mechanization as a way to generate business opportunities for Chinese companies and sell Chinese-made products into new markets, rather than as an opportunity to improve Chinese food security through the exploitation of African land.

Officials from the Food and Agriculture Organization also see Chinese technology transfers as beneficial, stating that the introduction of small machines from China has been one of the main drivers of African agricultural development.

 The Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC), which is held every three years, aims to strengthen the Sino-African relationship and has also highlighted agriculture’s centrality to the Sino-Africa relationship. At the most recent FOCAC meeting, President Xi Jinping stated that China would offer billion of dollars to Africa. Those funds would be used to fund a variety of projects but, in terms of agriculture, he promised that:

President Xi Jinping said that china will support Africa in achieving general food security by 2030, work with Africa to formulate and implement a program of action to promote China-Africa cooperation on agricultural modernization.

They will implement 50 agricultural assistance programs, provide RMB 1 billion of emergency humanitarian food assistance to African countries affected by natural disasters, send 500 senior agriculture experts to Africa, and train young researchers in agri-science and entrepreneurs in agri-business.

There was some hostility to that announcement aired on Chinese social media. One critic, quoted in the Financial Times, stated that ‘China is a poor country as well’ before asking, ‘Is there any country that can provide China with $60 billion in aid?’ Criticism was so widespread that an article was printed in the Global Times, a media outlet that is ideologically aligned with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which argued that detractors of the CCP’s Africa policy are being influenced by ‘Western forces’:

The West has been putting the cart before the horse when it comes to its Africa policy. It emphasizes political governance yet overlooks industrialization. Western NGOs are very active in Africa, but what the continent needs most is transportation lines, power plants and manufacturing industries.

China-Africa cooperation has created a new way of cooperating with equality, mutual benefits and fruitful results. It made the West, which always wants to exercise leadership in Africa but always fails in doing so, feel uncomfortable. It is thus natural for some Western forces to use their advantage in shaping public opinion to make up for their disadvantaged position in economic collaboration with Africa.

It goes on to directly rebuke those Chinese citizens that question the CCP’s foreign policy, reinforcing the notion that international engagement is vital to China’s long-term grand strategy: Chinese people should also be aware that major powers must fulfill their obligations. Otherwise they can hardly stay where they are for long, not to mention going forward. It’s a petty mind-set to think that it is immoral to aid foreign countries because there are still poor people in China. It can hardly guide the nation’s grand practice.

China is likely to continue to be the main supplier of agricultural equipment in Sub-Saharan Africa. While it also provides technical assistance to regional farmers, it is unclear whether that will help to ameliorate the social, economic, environmental and political challenges that affect food security in the region. Developed countries, which have experience in overcoming those challenges, should also be engaged in the region’s agricultural development.

Yet the carbon footprint of African smallholder farming is low, and problems of eutrophication and other forms of agricultural pollution are less prevalent than elsewhere. Sustainable intensification is sometimes viewed as a Trojan horse for the implantation of large-scale, industrial agriculture – increasing yields through a dramatic increase in the use of fertilizers and pesticides while paying lip service to the environment and local farming conditions. As such, sustainable intensification polarizes opinion.

But the term needs to be understood in a more balanced way and reinterpreted as relevant to the realities of smallholder agriculture and the need for strengthening food security. Agricultural intensification can take many forms, including current systems, many of which are not sustainable.

With increasing pressure on natural resources and the impact of climate change, intensification must be made more sustainable. It can follow many paths, such as reducing reliance on fertilizers and pesticides; generating lower greenhouse gas emissions, and contributing to the maintenance of critical public goods, such as biodiversity and clean water.

Sustainable intensification is achievable for African smallholder farmers, and builds on many of their traditional practices. It includes: "micro-dosing" by which smallholder farmers use the cap of a drinks bottle to measure out small amounts of fertilizers, boosting yields significantly while keeping costs down for farmers and reducing the risk of fertilizer runoff into waterways; combining mixed field and tree crops, such as nitrogen-fixing varieties; harvesting and managing scarce water for supplementary irrigation; and promoting regeneration of diverse natural species in common lands.

But sustainable intensification requires more than just inputs and technology – it demands greater co-operation and organization in rural areas. For instance, supporting village "grain banks" run by local farmer associations helps smallholders to protect their grain.

Farmers deposit grain and the bank keeps it protected against pests and diseases, so that farmers can access it as needed or sell later in the season when prices are typically higher. This type of network is supported by the Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange, a private-sector firm that provides farmers with prices and other market intelligence by SMS text.

While many parts of the world have experienced large increases in crop yields over the past 50 years, production has not always been intensified sustainably. Intensification is often associated with the ills of modern agriculture seen in the west – over-use of chemicals and fertilizer, pollution of rivers and water bodies, monocrops and biodiversity deserts.

But African agriculture does not need to follow suit. Helping African farmers to increase their production and incomes while safeguarding the environment – in short, sustainable intensification – offers a balanced and practical way forward.

It is time to place sustainable intensification at the heart of African agriculture, and ensure that development goals deliver on the agenda. Sustainable intensification involves producing more crops, better nutrition and higher rural incomes from the same set of inputs – such as land, water, credit and knowledge – while reducing environmental impacts on a sustained basis.

Governments, in partnership with the private sector and NGOs, are all called upon to recognize the huge potential for sustainable intensification as a driver of development – in terms of food security, better nutrition and more resilient rural livelihoods.

Furthermore, Africa is potentially an agricultural powerhouse. The continent has 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land and could grow enough food to meet its own needs and export surpluses. Yet hundreds of millions go hungry. Despite recent progress, Africa’s farmers, most of whom are smallholders who underperform.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development clearly asserts a collective responsibility to fully achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 2, which aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by the year 2030. It also commits to the provision of universal access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.

This will require sustainable food production systems, resilient agricultural practices, equal access to land, technology and markets, and international cooperation on investments in infrastructure and technology to boost agricultural productivity.

In doing so, the global community needs to focus on Africa, where the prevalence of hunger is more acute, high in proportion, and the recovery potential is low due to a lack of resources and related endowments.

Finally, one of the main causes of food insecurity in Africa, in addition to regional/domestic production constraints and resource scarcity, is the lack of cost-effective and timely availability of food products from international markets. Imports are costly due to the high cost of trade.

Higher trade and transaction costs stem from cumbersome regulatory procedures, both at the export and import level, as well as from the uncertainty at destination border points due to a number of non-tariff measures (NTMs) that may require a last-minute application of various standards and, at times, be nearly impossible to comply with by the exporters and importers.

A key lesson learned from examining the experiences of countries is that hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition are complex problems that cannot be resolved by a single stakeholder or sector. Addressing the immediate and underlying causes of hunger will require a variety of actions across a range of sectors, including agricultural production and productivity, rural development, forestry, fisheries, social protection and trade and markets.

We also need to bring together leaders from the private sector, civil society and the political sphere to trigger cooperation that benefits farmers and the general population