The African challenge: how to end hunger?
Erratic rainfall, crop failures, pressure on prices, 925 million worldwide people are undernourished, 300 million in Africa. A situation which is even more unacceptable that the continent has the potential to rise to the challenge writes Jeune Afrique (JA) in its current issue.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/The-African-cha...
In an Al Jazeera programme the rapper Tiken Jah Fakoly remarks that Africa has many riches but its people are poor. Whilst famine has been current in the Horn of Africa for sometime , its appearance in the Sahel seems to be frighteningly sudden although as Oxfam and UNWRA have been pointing out in warning messages it has been present for sometime and the upsurge in violence following the fall of Gaddafi in Libya and the exit of his mercenaries and their weapons has meant that about 172,000 Malians have fled their country.In a matter of weeks Mali ,Niger and Chad have seen thousands on the move. Drought and desertification have undermined local agriculture and now the people have been driven off their land. As JA observes prices of commodities have risen and their is malnutrition in Mauritania a million people are severely malnourished.
Food security which was discused last week at the International Forum on Food Security in Rabat is a serious issue for all of Africa because there is not a single African country which is not facing food insecurity to some degree or another. "Agriculture must be profitable and should be better known and have a better image to attract younger people in particular. " Said Roberto Rodrigues, former Minister of Agriculture of Brazil and" farmer and Mustapha Terrab observed that there is a perception problem in the way the world sees farmers. Governments have concentrated on feeding city populations to the detriment of rural populations. Pressure to produce cheap food has affected farmer's incomes and lack of crop diversifcation means that there is littleto fall back on in difficult times. Authorities are reluctant to provide loans to farmers. However if farmers abandon their farms because of regional conflicts there is little chance of a quick recovery . Agriculture takes time and governments have all too frequently failed to adequately support farming communities. National and interanational support has been lacking or it has been undermined.Most farming in Africa is subsistance farming which achieves little for its communities.There is also a clash between agribusiness and the needs of small farmers.
The lull which had been known markets after the mad surge in world prices of cereals, four years ago, was completed in 2011. "Volatility and steadfastness that characterizes food prices are expected to persist and may even increase, making farmers, consumers and poor countries even more vulnerable," warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its latest report on hunger, released in October.
With nearly 300 million people suffering from hunger, Africa is the first victim, direct and immediate, this price volatility of agricultural products. If the famine in the Horn of Africa refers primarily to the challenges of political stability, the looming food crisis in the Sahel again reveals the inadequacies of sub-Saharan agriculture. Traditional, far from urban centers, very poorly mechanized and disconnected from the main commercial channels, it is unable to feed the 400 million people living in cities. In rural areas, incomes are so small farmers are immediately struck by famine when the granaries are empty.
JA observes that Africa is rife with paradoxes. It imports up to 85% of its food, while it has more than 700 million hectares of unused arable land, three times the size of the DR Congo. It is crossed by huge rivers, but only 3% of land is irrigated, as against over 20% worldwide. It houses rich underground deposits of phosphates (Morocco, Senegal, Togo ...), but fertilizer consumption is only 13 kg per hectare against 190 kg in East Asia, FAO says . Consequently, Africa is the only region in the world where per capita agricultural production has declined in the last twenty years, with yields per hectare twice lower than the average for other developing countries.
Why is this happening? "The powers that be have deliberately favored urban populations, and therefore imports, to the detriment of the rural population," denounces Mamadou Cissoko, honorary president of the Network of Peasant Organizations and Producers in West Africa (Roppa ).
To reverse this trend, it is necessary to protect local industries, to increase trade barriers, to establish new funding mechanisms and to promote research, particularly on out of season crops to end the lean season, which is a problem every year.
African states are spending only 4% of public expenditure to agriculture, as against 11% to 14% in Asia. To feed 2 billion Africans expected in 2050, FAO estimated 11 billion dollars (8.3 billion euros) a year the amount of investment required (purchase of tools and machinery, installation of systems irrigation and processing industries, increased storage capacity and transportation and agricultural research .
There are some basic observations to be made , good governance is necessary and corruption grips the continent like a wasting disease. Dictatorships need to give way to empowered populations who have the ability to look after themselves, the recent events of the Arab Spring are a giant step foward in this respect and policies for devolution and local rather than centralised governance are being put in place. Small group start ups and microcredit schemes can help. More realistic crops and above all stability and an end to lawlessness and poverty which has plagued so many African countries. The NGO's like Oxfam and Save the Children and the UN insist that there are ways to help farmers to help themselves with better crops and techniques. But governments, regional bodies and international organisations must provide more effective support which at the moment is lacking.
Whether these aims can be achieved by governments working with NGOs remains to be seen. Terrorism adds to the disruption, In West Africa Boko Haram bombs a church in Nigeria andon the same day in Kenya on the east coast an Al Shebab terrorist throws a grenade killing six.
Among the Millennium Development Goals which the United Nations has set for the 21st century, halving the proportion of hungry people in the world is top of the list. Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily rising for the past decade. As JA observes it is a question of equilibrium and balance.
Food security which was discused last week at the International Forum on Food Security in Rabat is a serious issue for all of Africa because there is not a single African country which is not facing food insecurity to some degree or another. "Agriculture must be profitable and should be better known and have a better image to attract younger people in particular. " Said Roberto Rodrigues, former Minister of Agriculture of Brazil and" farmer and Mustapha Terrab observed that there is a perception problem in the way the world sees farmers. Governments have concentrated on feeding city populations to the detriment of rural populations. Pressure to produce cheap food has affected farmer's incomes and lack of crop diversifcation means that there is littleto fall back on in difficult times. Authorities are reluctant to provide loans to farmers. However if farmers abandon their farms because of regional conflicts there is little chance of a quick recovery . Agriculture takes time and governments have all too frequently failed to adequately support farming communities. National and interanational support has been lacking or it has been undermined.Most farming in Africa is subsistance farming which achieves little for its communities.There is also a clash between agribusiness and the needs of small farmers.
The lull which had been known markets after the mad surge in world prices of cereals, four years ago, was completed in 2011. "Volatility and steadfastness that characterizes food prices are expected to persist and may even increase, making farmers, consumers and poor countries even more vulnerable," warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its latest report on hunger, released in October.
With nearly 300 million people suffering from hunger, Africa is the first victim, direct and immediate, this price volatility of agricultural products. If the famine in the Horn of Africa refers primarily to the challenges of political stability, the looming food crisis in the Sahel again reveals the inadequacies of sub-Saharan agriculture. Traditional, far from urban centers, very poorly mechanized and disconnected from the main commercial channels, it is unable to feed the 400 million people living in cities. In rural areas, incomes are so small farmers are immediately struck by famine when the granaries are empty.
JA observes that Africa is rife with paradoxes. It imports up to 85% of its food, while it has more than 700 million hectares of unused arable land, three times the size of the DR Congo. It is crossed by huge rivers, but only 3% of land is irrigated, as against over 20% worldwide. It houses rich underground deposits of phosphates (Morocco, Senegal, Togo ...), but fertilizer consumption is only 13 kg per hectare against 190 kg in East Asia, FAO says . Consequently, Africa is the only region in the world where per capita agricultural production has declined in the last twenty years, with yields per hectare twice lower than the average for other developing countries.
Why is this happening? "The powers that be have deliberately favored urban populations, and therefore imports, to the detriment of the rural population," denounces Mamadou Cissoko, honorary president of the Network of Peasant Organizations and Producers in West Africa (Roppa ).
To reverse this trend, it is necessary to protect local industries, to increase trade barriers, to establish new funding mechanisms and to promote research, particularly on out of season crops to end the lean season, which is a problem every year.
African states are spending only 4% of public expenditure to agriculture, as against 11% to 14% in Asia. To feed 2 billion Africans expected in 2050, FAO estimated 11 billion dollars (8.3 billion euros) a year the amount of investment required (purchase of tools and machinery, installation of systems irrigation and processing industries, increased storage capacity and transportation and agricultural research .
There are some basic observations to be made , good governance is necessary and corruption grips the continent like a wasting disease. Dictatorships need to give way to empowered populations who have the ability to look after themselves, the recent events of the Arab Spring are a giant step foward in this respect and policies for devolution and local rather than centralised governance are being put in place. Small group start ups and microcredit schemes can help. More realistic crops and above all stability and an end to lawlessness and poverty which has plagued so many African countries. The NGO's like Oxfam and Save the Children and the UN insist that there are ways to help farmers to help themselves with better crops and techniques. But governments, regional bodies and international organisations must provide more effective support which at the moment is lacking.
Whether these aims can be achieved by governments working with NGOs remains to be seen. Terrorism adds to the disruption, In West Africa Boko Haram bombs a church in Nigeria andon the same day in Kenya on the east coast an Al Shebab terrorist throws a grenade killing six.
Among the Millennium Development Goals which the United Nations has set for the 21st century, halving the proportion of hungry people in the world is top of the list. Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily rising for the past decade. As JA observes it is a question of equilibrium and balance.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/The-African-cha...