What African agriculture needs

Lazarus Sauti

Africa can feed itself and can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation.

To achieve this, the great continent needs her agriculture as a real driver of economic growth and poverty reduction.

Sadly, the story of agriculture in most – if not all – African countries today is largely one of massive but untapped potential.

Because of this, David Bennett, a co-leader of the Biocience for Farming in Africa programme, believes that Africa needs trade not aid to be able to feed her populace.

“Too often people think food security can be achieved by a combination of long term research and short term low-tech initiatives. These depend on donor funding, whether from foreign governments – either directly or via their support for research – or from charitable foundations or nongovernmental organisations.

“But for any solution to food security to be truly sustainable, people have to move from depending on aid to depending on trade.

“That is the elephant in the room when it comes to Africa – clearly evident but all too frequently hidden away and not spoken about.”

Dambisa Moyo, an internationally renowned economist and author of ‘Dead Aid’ is of the view that relying on aid allows governments from developing nations to hand over responsibility.

“To me, the most damaging problem of the aid system is it allows governments to abdicate responsibility,” she comments.

Agreeing with Moyo, Bennett thus said aid undermines development, adding: “Many hundreds of millions of poor smallholder farmers are hungry because they cannot grow enough food for themselves and their families, or make enough money from selling what they do produce.

“Growing enough food needs money... so it comes down to the economy. And that means moving from donor-dependency to trade-based self-sufficiency and self-reliance - which is what these many poor and hungry people say they want anyway!”

Consequently, Moyo and Bennett believe food security needs Africa to move from aid-dependent fixes to profitable trade-driven agriculture and sharing same sentiments, Ed Noel of the Institute of Ideas, London added that Africa and other developing nations should pursue a policy of ‘trade not aid’ for proper development.

Pursuing a policy of ‘trade not aid’ allows Africa to attract investment. Investment, Bennett said, breeds success, and countries within Africa should therefore strive to achieve growth by improving the climate for famers to attract investment.

“They (African countries) can achieve growth by controlling public finances, curbing inflation and, crucially, improving the climate for entrepreneurs and small businesses by sweeping away price controls and state monopolies to attract further inward investment for economic development in all sectors including agriculture - investments in the form of grants or cheap loans and, importantly, investments from the African diaspora,” he noted.

Critical to note is the fact that aid dependency requires a radical shift both in the mindset and in the development strategy of Africa and a deeper and direct involvement of governments and the people.

Therefore, as migration of young people from rural to urban areas has left food production in the hands of their elderly parents, a fundamental change in the mindsets of African youths is needed.

Youths in Africa should view themselves as key players in the food production chain and this can only be possible if farming becomes profitable, and if supportive infrastructure that recognises agriculture as a catalyst for development is provided.

Was it not Ghana’s Dr Kofi Amoah of Progeny Ventures who said: “Africa’s new opportunities must be embraced with an African mindset?

“Africa must adopt economic policies that would reflect realities of the society, ensure Africans work to combine land and other resources to produce its needs and drive a viable export sector.”

Adding his voice, Bernd Mueller of the Fair Trade, Employment and Poverty Reduction project, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, said: “Africa needs to start creating reliable and decent wage employment for rural Africans by promoting highly productive and labour-intensive agriculture on medium- to large-scale farms. This will be crucial for strengthening African agriculture and supporting the rural poor.”

Unfortunately, Africa is lacking a mixture of meticulous policy packages and good institutions able to review and react in the delivery of services.

This is according to Boaz Blackie Keizire, Technical Advisor to a Pan African Agricultural Reform Program, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) at the African Union Commission.

“What Africa is lacking is a combination of rigorous policy packages and good institutions able to assess and respond in the delivery of services.

Much of Africa currently does not have the necessary systems that can guarantee private sector investment, and monitor, report and ensure accountability,” said Keizire.

It is crucial, added Keizire, for African countries to therefore strengthen capacities and systems for delivery of public sector services in order to attract other key actors.

This means Africa needs to overcome ‘the donor-dependency syndrome’ since top-down funding and hand-out donations are short-term solutions with consequences including an inability to establish longer-term planning.

Furthermore, Africa must partner countries and organisations that offer genuine help.

This means Africa should grasp many means and opportunities available for improving the life of her citizens and for this to work; Africans should first destroy the myth that aid is indispensable in the socio-economic set-up of the motherland.