Africa Can and Should Feed Itself

             I have worked on analyzing Africa issues for more than 40 years, and during that time, I have constantly heard appeals for humanitarian food assistance to African countries lest its citizens starve. No reasonable person would want that, and in cases of war, civil strife or sudden natural disasters, such humanitarian assistance is certainly warranted. But when will we get to the place where aid is aimed at enabling African countries to become self-reliant? No nation on earth is fully self-sufficient, but when a country can’t feed itself, it becomes beholden to those who do provide its sustenance. That makes such a nation a vassal to its benefactors.

Jonathan Said of the Tony Blair Institute, writing on the AGRA website, echoed the view that developing countries must be enabled to fend for themselves rather than perpetually be aid recipients:

"The key insight from agricultural development in developing countries in recent years is that in order to build resilience, the international community needs to change its approach. It cannot remain too narrowly focused on direct, short-term support to farmers. Rather, it must support the development of local markets and of government systems," Said wrote.

To do this successfully, he says, "it is essential to fully back the agriculture transformation agenda of African governments. This means tailoring financial and technical assistance, as well as investment facilitation efforts that create business opportunities for other countries, to fully back agricultural value chains and markets that are prioritised by the host government."

To be fair, much of the long-term food security problem in Africa was exacerbated by the COVID 19 shutdowns, the closure of borders and the cancelling of flights and sea shipments, and the effort to restart production and trade has sparked inflation as the world struggles to re-establish efficient supply chains and catch up on lost production of raw materials.

The war in Ukraine has made matters even worse in more vulnerable African economies accustomed to accessing grain and fertilizer from Ukraine and Russia. Even with Turkey’s arrangement of a renewed supply through the Black Sea, shipments have been too low to curb the damage being done to African food supplies, resulting in reduced commodity supplies and higher prices for what is made available.

“Ankara brokered a deal between Ukraine and Russia to allow grain carriers to transit the Black Sea from Ukrainian ports, but few vessels have managed to make the journey. At the same time, there is limited capacity to transport grain and other bulk foodstuffs by road or rail further west into Europe for global distribution,” stated a November 11 article in African Business.

“The loss of a major international supplier has driven up prices across much of the world, but African consumers are generally less able to compete on price than their counterparts in the industrialised world. It is not just that prices have risen but that there is less to go around because much of the Ukrainian harvest is going to waste.”

The war in Ukraine has accounted for nearly 40% of the 60-75% increase in global wheat prices over the past year, as well as most of the annual increase in the prices of corn and sunflower oil, according to the UNDP, which cites Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan among the countries most vulnerable to food shortages, partly because they rely so much on imports.

According to the International Monetary Fund, staple food prices in sub-Saharan Africa surged by an average 23.9 percent in 2020-22—the most since the 2008 global monetary crisis. This is proportionate to an 8.5 percent rise in the cost of a typical food consumption basket (beyond generalized price increases).

“We estimate that a 1 percent increase in the consumption share of a staple food raises the local price by an average 0.7 percent; the effect is even bigger when a staple is mostly imported, raising the price by about 1.2 percent. When a country’s net import dependence increases by 1 percent, the local actual cost of a highly imported staple is expected to increase by an additional 0.2 percent,” the IMF states.

“The relative strength of a country’s currency is another driver as it affects the costs of imported food items. We find that a 1 percent depreciation in real effective exchange rates increases the price of highly imported staples by an average 0.3 percent.”

The IMF estimates that a 1 percent increase in the consumption share of a staple food raises the local price by an average 0.7 percent; the effect is even bigger when a staple is mostly imported, raising the price by about 1.2 percent. When a country’s net import dependence increases by 1 percent, the local actual cost of a highly imported staple is expected to increase by an additional 0.2 percent.

According to the IMF, the relative strength of a country’s currency is another driver as it affects the costs of imported food items. The IMF finds that a 1 percent depreciation in real effective exchange rates increases the price of highly imported staples by an average 0.3 percent.

So, notwithstanding global dislocations, conflict and natural disasters, African governments and private sectors retain some agency in terms of their ability to weather conditions that threaten food security. Dr. Agnes Kalibata, president of AGRA, says the following lessons should be learned from the food crisis of 2007-08: 

· Allow food to be traded and attack non-tariff barriers that are the most serious limitations to trade. 

· Give farmers access to productive, climate smart seeds, the knowledge they need to become more productive and innovative financial tools.

· Help them get their products to market. Millions of farmers can be lifted quickly this way.

· Soaring fertilizer prices must be addressed with urgent action to increase efficiency.

· Promote greater use of farmers’ traditional practices of regeneration and organic fertilization.

· Governments should lead and coordinate, the private sector should target investment on proven solutions and unlock African farmers’ potential.

            Looking back on the days when there were African exporters of food, surely this level of production can be achieved again. It will have to be if the predictions of global recession are as accurate as they seem to be. Developed countries will be much less able to provide food aid and given the likelihood at this point that the Ukraine conflict will not be completely resolved soon and foodstuffs put back into global markets in sufficient quantities quickly, African countries will have to ramp up their own production of food to feed themselves.

            If countries were able to achieve surplus food decades ago, why can’t they repeat that in today’s more advanced agricultural conditions? Dwindling water supplies will, of course, be a problem since agriculture uses so much water, but there are successful strategies already being used to minimize water use, as well as strategies to grow more much quicker on less land and to replenish agricultural land to enable continuous production.

            The time has come to end internal land disputes in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world and update the tactics used to grow produce and cultivate livestock. Over the years, I have heard Africans say: “But this is how we traditionally do things.”

            That may be, but when the conditions in the world change, you must adapt or see the number of people starving reach numbers far beyond what is reasonable or tolerable. With the help of Africa’s Diaspora and the support of its successful indigenous entrepreneurs, African countries and other Diaspora majority countries can become more self-reliant. In fact, the choice between doing nothing new and trying innovative approaches isn’t much of a choice.