Africa asked to accelerate agric investment

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called on African Ministers of Agriculture to accelerate investment and broad-based transformation in support of smallholder farmers, including rural youth and women.

The FAO’s Regional Conference is currently taking place in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, from March 24-28 and the organisation’s Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa, Bukar Tijani, said at the opening session that in spite of important economic progress and agricultural successes, Africa remains the world’s most food-insecure continent, with relatively low levels of agricultural productivity, low incomes, and high rates of malnutrition.

The continent has achieved a series of agricultural successes in major areas including the intensification of staple food production, improved varieties of banana in eastern and central Africa, high-yielding varieties of maize in east and southern Africa, productivity gains in cotton production in Burkina Faso and Mali, and tea and floriculture in East Africa.

Africa’s annual total GDP grew on average by 4.8 percent in 2000-2010, up from 2.1 percent in the previous decade, and the agricultural sector’s growth rates in the same time period were 3.2 percent and 3 percent respectively.

“The question is how African leaders can build on this progress by providing stable agriculture and fiscal policies that encourage investment, as committed to 10 years ago in the Maputo Declaration, and strengthen governance and accountability mechanisms that contribute to more systematic implementation of policies and programmes,” Mr. Tijani said.

“These actions are critical to trigger a transformation in the capacity of countries to deliver sustained and broad-based agricultural growth and development,” he added.

FAO estimates that poverty rates in Africa declined marginally from 56 percent in 1990 to 49 percent in 2010, leaving 388 million in extreme poverty and approximately 239 million chronically undernourished in the continent. The food situation in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa continues to be of particular concern.

On average, agricultural production in Africa has increased slightly less than 1 percent per year, compared with about 2 percent in developing countries. While Africa experienced high instability in food price levels, per capita food production was more stable over time and variability was relatively low compared to other regions such as Asia or Latin America.

The conference will advocate providing the needed enabling environment to end hunger on the continent by 2025. It will primarily focus on sustainably increasing the potential of agriculture, fisheries, livestock and forestry as a source of employment for African youth, women and men who engage in these sectors for food and nutrition security as well as agri-business ventures aimed at increasing family incomes.

In order to compete successfully with imports in their own growing domestic and regional agri-business markets, African farmers and agribusinesses will need to improve value-chain efficiency at all levels, the FAO said.

The organisation said there are significant opportunities for accelerating smallholder-driven agriculture and agri-business in Africa as the basis for transforming and commercialising the sector.

By Konrad Kodjo Djaisi | B&FT Online | Ghana