Can Africa help feed Africa?

                             

“By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.” (UN, 2015) 

In the search for food security in Africa, I found an interesting report in 2012 by The World Bank:  “Africa Can Help Feed Africa - Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples.”  

The study argues that an increase in regional trade would be the most effective way to advance food security and economic growth on the continent. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of investments in technology, quality-seeds, and fertilizers to produce enough food to feed 854 million malnourished people as stated in the report.  I found this study interesting as the aspect of food security is different from that in Public Health. The underlying issues of food insecurity vary from disruptive policies, social inequalities, limited access to land and water, poor agricultural sectors and rural infrastructure. These topics are ones that I intend to write about in future blog posts. Today’s post is a reflection on how trade policies affect food security within Africa.
 

It was surprising that, while Africa’s food staple production is worth at least US$ 50 billion per year at the market value, the continent spends nearly 35 billion US dollars each year importing food. Furthermore, the cost of imported food is projected to increase to 110 billion US dollars by 2025. (World Bank 2008).  In the 1970s, Africa contributed 8 % to the world’s total agricultural output. Today, this number has dropped to 3.8 % (Verason, Otavio, 2017). One explanation for this is that Africa’s regional trade in staples is not being exploited even though it creates an enormous potential for growth. In 2008, African cereal imports were estimated to be around US$15.2 billion (World Bank, 2012) yet, just 5 % of all grain imported by African countries are regional. This trend can partially be explained by the growing trends in population, low stagnating in agricultural productivity, poor infrastructure, weak institutions and most importantly failures in trade policies across the continent. (World Bank, 2012).

If Africa’s farmers do not produce more food, the import bills for food will rise substantially especially in urban areas and the net import of food will increase significantly (Otavio Verason, 2017).  For a continent with such a vast arable and booming young population, it should be able to produce and export to reduce poverty within Africa 

The key barriers to trade: 

It is a well-known fact that barriers to trade in the value chain of food staples are:  a) barriers to trade that limit access to seeds and fertilizers; b) factors that lead to high transport cost in Africa; c) dangers of crossing borders, especially for small informal traders many of whom are women; d) costs of opaque and unpredictable trade policies that limit trade in staples across borders, mainly non-tariff barriers (NTBs); and e) inefficient distribution services that fail to link poor producers to poor consumers. (World Bank, 2012).  Figure 1 below shows the issue associated with trading staples across borders. For example, 85 percent of the participants experienced some form of bribery, and 60 percent were fined for activities related to the trade. Although these issues persist today, one should consider the low number of participants in the survey and the fact that it was conducted in 2010. As East African countries have improved trade links since 2012 (WTO, 2012). 

figure 1. 

Source: World Bank, 2012 

If national governments address these barriers, it may improve the ‘soft’ infrastructure needed for good cross-border relations. This is important because the increased regional trade has the potential to (a) expand the size of Africa’s market for food staples, (b) boost agricultural growth in surplus zones, and (c) mitigate shortages in deficit ones. Besides, regional trade in food staples can also help moderate price volatility in African food staple markets (World Bank, 2012). 

The World Bank report uses a comparison between Africa and other developing countries with similarities in social and climatic conditions as an exemplar on how to increase agricultural productivity. This can be seen in figure 2 that compares the decline in the net trade position. While Africa’s imports of food staples have grown at a much faster rate than exports, other regions such as Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia have narrowed the gap between imports and exports substantially. These regions have gone from being net importers to net exporters past the 20 years. 

Figure 2:

 

Source: World Bank, 2012 

Africa has only 5 percent of its cultivated land has access to use irrigation (most farmers depend on rainfall), whereas 38 percent of arable land is irrigated in Asia (World Bank, 2012).  Another aspect is the quality of the soil, for instance. Average fertilizer usage in Ghana is 7.4 kg per hectare, meanwhile, in South Asia, the average is more than 100kg fertilizer per hectare. Furthermore, FAO estimates show that the yield of rice and wheat per unit area in Asia has nearly tripled over 25 years due to new crops, fertilizers, pesticides and right market conditions with affordable prices for fertilizers, rice, and wheat (World Bank, 2012).  Although, in general comparisons help to understand better the different mechanisms that drive agriculture, it is important not to generalize. There are significant differences between Africa and Asia, even within the same countries. It is therefore difficult to have an "ideal" approach to increasing sustainable agricultural productivity.

There is, however, substantial evidence that the trends in import within Africa and other developing regions insinuate that the domestic factors can explain the fundamental causes of the increase in net imports of staples in Africa. Which is good news because that means that Africa has the potential to solve its food insecurity issues and I intend to elaborate on this argument in a future blog post. 


Thank you for reading this post!

References: 

Otavio Verason, 2017

Available at: https://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/agriculture-africa-potential-versus-reality/57635/

United Nations, 2015 available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf 

World Bank, 2012: available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/Africa-Can-Feed-Africa-Report.pdf

World Trade Organisation, 2012: available at https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp371_e.htm