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Africa is a huge continent with considerable challenges – and extensive opportunities -- not least within the agricultural sector. Through sustainable utilization of its vast resource base, and in cooperation with the international community, Africa can plot a course to progress.
The portrait of Africa, especially in the West, tends to be colored with crises and calamities, rather than painting the continent’s potential and progress. Yet Africa is moving ahead, with notable advancements in cultivating its human resources and implementing new technologies – developing its economies. Within the agricultural sector, the drive for an African Green Revolution has already seen results in the way of increased investments – and growth.
Yara started doing business with Africa in 1929 and has had a permanent presence on the continent since 1985. Through our Africa Program, launched in 2005, we have increasingly engaged ourselves in developing Africa’s agricultural sector – promoting and participating in the African Green Revolution.
Africa is rich in minerals, forests, land – and water that is suitable for producing food, rivers that can be harnessed for electricity. Many of these resources already have been exploited, however, not only for the benefit of Africa and Africans, more often for foreign interests.
Due to several factors, including political instability and little regional integration, Africa’s economic growth has barely managed to keep pace with the continent’s population growth. For much of Africa this improved in the 1990s, with greater stability and growing economies. Although hit by combined crises – food, fuel and financial – in 2008–10, Africa as a whole has managed to maintain annual economic growth of around five percent in recent years.
Agriculture is Africa’s dominant societal and economic sector, supporting the livelihood of 80 percent of its people and providing employment for about 60 percent of the economically active population. On average, agriculture contributes about a third of gross domestic product and at least 40 percent of exports. Still, during the past three decades, agriculture has largely been neglected by African policy-makers as well as foreign donors, setting the sector back to its present critical state of affairs. From producing surpluses for export half a century ago, most African countries today face a shortage of food, becoming increasingly dependent on imports.
African agriculture is dominated by small plots and low productivity. Up to 90 percent of all farmers in Africa south of the Sahara are smallholders, the majority living in poverty, many of them women. African agriculture is largely dependent on often unreliable rainfall. Less than four percent of farmed land in Africa is irrigated, compared to 40 percent in Asia.
Soil conditions constitute a major constraint for African agriculture. About 65 percent of the agricultural land is degraded; about 16 percent of the land is classified as very low in nutrients, as opposed to only four percent in Asia. African soils are estimated to be losing nutrients at a value of USD 4 billion per year.
Yet application of mineral fertilizer in Sub-Saharan Africa is far below any other region: about eight kilograms per hectare on average, and even lower in smallholder farming, compared to a target of 50 kg/ha set forth at the African Fertilizer Summit in 2006 – and against about 144 kg/ha in Asia. Cereal yields stand at about one-third of those in South Asia.
At the same time, major regional and global institutions such as the African Union, African Development Bank and the World Bank, as well as national politicians and experts, consider agriculture the most potent engine of growth in Africa. The potential has been demonstrated, and amply highlighted within the context of the African Green Revolution.
Stable local, regional and international politics and policy regulations are crucial to attract much-needed private investment. Democratic systems, with good governance and political accountability, must be in place to secure the interests of the majority of the people. To harness Africa’s wealth, a combined pro-private and pro-poor political approach needs to be adapted, with a partnership between the public and private sectors.
There is a growing realization, in academic and political circles as well as in business, that public-private partnership is needed to secure the necessary capital and competence. The main task of national political authorities is to create a stable and secure environment where businesses can work. Africa also needs research and development, innovation and technology, which to a great extent has to be driven through partnership and within the framework of international cooperation. Another widely growing realization is the need for holistic approaches, developing entire value chains.
Not least, Africa needs to revise its policies in order to rejuvenate its agriculture, which is considered the locomotive of economic growth. African governments have committed themselves, through the so-called Maputo declaration, to devoting 10 percent of their national budgets towards improving the agricultural sector – in order to achieve the six percent annual economic growth needed to fight poverty and reach the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Policies are also needed to accommodate the rapid urbanization affecting both cities and rural areas, creating challenges as well as opportunities.
The African resource base is rich, but the environment is under pressure and its ecosystems are fragile. Still, with a sustainable approach and responsible management, the African environment can cope with the demands of producing necessary economic growth. A vast amount of common sense and inherited knowledge exists about the best ways to draw on nature’s resources in Africa without destruction. With rapid population growth and urbanization there is a need to combine traditional and modern methods in order to produce enough food, energy and other products, while striving to preserve ecological balance.
One of the major environmental problems experienced by Africa is the severe depletion of its soils, where the removal of nutrients has gradually rendered farmland unproductive or unable to produce enough food to cope with population growth. Soil restoration requires the addition of mineral fertilizers, accompanied by sustainable management practices.
There is a dire need to improve agricultural productivity, largely from existing farmland, not only in order to produce enough food to feed a growing population, but also to preserve remaining forests and other threatened habitats. Land degradation and desertification, the scarcity and deterioration of surface and groundwater, and the decline of vital biological resources such as fuel wood and fish are widely recognized problems throughout Africa.
Climate change is becoming a major challenge for Africa and African agriculture, although in some areas it may also represent an opportunity, improving growing conditions. Because of its vulnerability, it is considered that Africa at large may be the region hardest hit by climate change, especially food production in areas with high food insecurity.
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