Africa is home to 33 of the world’s 46 least-developed countries facing food insecurity. This scourge continues to spread across the continent, threatening the lives of Africa’s over 1.4 billion people, impacting development and forcing authorities to acknowledge that the continent is no longer on track to meet the food security and nutrition targets of Sustainable Development Goal 2.
Agriculture is one of the main economic sectors in Africa and employed 44% of the continent’s population in 2020. Over 70% of the continent’s poor live in rural areas, with farming being their main economic activity. Nevertheless, agriculture contributes only about 10% to GDP in North Africa and about 18% in sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2019, farmland covered over 1 billion hectares or 40% of Africa’s total land and it is also where 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land can be found.
Increasing dependence on food import
The situation in Africa’s agricultural sector has constantly worsened over the past few decades, strengthening its dependence on food imports. Since the 1960s, Africa has seen its agricultural productivity fall by 34%, the biggest contraction in the world. By late 2022, 82% of Africa’s basic food came from outside the continent, as noted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). As the continent’s population is expected to double by 2050, the food security issue is expected to become increasingly pressing.
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With Russia and Ukraine being its main food providers, 2022 was particularly tough for Africa given that the ongoing war between the two countries triggered skyrocketing prices of staple foods like wheat, maize and barley, and therefore increased the number of people facing food insecurity.
“The number of people experiencing food insecurity across Africa increased from 512 million in 2014 to 794.7 million people in 2021 – nearly 60% of the continent’s population,” said Paul Akiwumi, UNCTAD Director for Africa and Least Developed Countries.
Akiwumi added that Africa was no longer on track to meet the food security and nutrition targets of Sustainable Development Goal 2.
“Global challenges to moving affordable food, fertilizer and fuel are compounding with ongoing conflict in the region and drought. This puts pressure on already fragile livelihoods across the continent and raises the risk of additional population displacement due to lack of food,” says Akiwumi.
Poor access to fertilizer
As a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, fertilizer prices rose by about 30% in 2022, after soaring by 80% in 2021. Furthermore, Africa has been facing restricted access to this product, as Ukraine and Russia are among its main providers. The problem is serious given that sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, meets approximately 90% of its fertilizer needs from imports.
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“If current trends continue, this will leave little room for farming in sub-Saharan countries, especially poorer households, resulting in a long and deep food and jobs crisis, especially in rural Africa,” said David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group.
He pointed out the need to solve the issue internally given that Africa produces more fertilizer than it needs, more precisely about 30 million metric tons of fertilizer per year, or 50% more than it consumes.
“This reflects inefficiencies in shipping and port costs, distribution chains, information availability and other trade frictions. Each factor needs a concerted effort by African nations to fix the system,” said Malpass.
Internal impediments to efficient agriculture
Fertilizer is not the only issue for Africa’s agriculture sector. Smallholder farms are the continent’s main agricultural producers, with their number being estimated at 33 million. They typically own less than one hectare of land, but ensure about 70% of the locally produced food. This figure could be higher if they had the necessary infrastructure.
Coping with increasingly higher prices of fertilizer, pesticides, fuel, etc. would have been less burdensome if, for instance, farmers had the benefit of better storage facilities which would make it possible to store their produce and sell this at a better price. Given the shortage of warehouses and poor access to loans, farmers cannot afford to wait for the best season prices and are therefore forced to sell their produce at low prices.
Road infrastructure is yet one more issue. Africa has 204 km of roads per 1,000 km2, whereas the global average stands at 944 km per 1,000 km2. Apart from putting a dampener on intercontinental trade, this situation adds a great deal to the transport costs that farmers face. According to KPMG, cargo costs are between 50% to 175% higher in Africa compared to the global average. This leads to the paradoxical situation whereby farmers often find it easier to export their goods outside the continent rather than sell them within Africa.
Apart from these factors, African countries also have to face pests and disease infestation, poor soil quality because of overfarming and environmental degradation, low levels of agricultural education, corruption, and high rural-urban migration.
Climate change impact
One issue that Africa is barely responsible for is climate change, accounting for just 2% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, yet it is expected to be the continent that will be worst hit by natural disasters. Even in the best-case scenario, which envisages an increase in temperature below 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, Africa will still face significant heatwaves. Some sources project that the average temperature on the continent will be 3 to 6 degrees Celsius higher by the end of the century.
As Africa’s agriculture relies on favorable weather which is now affected by the effects of climate change, the once predictable growing cycles are threatened. In sub-Saharan Africa, which is seen as being the most vulnerable to climate change, farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture but are now threatened by extreme weather.
The latest such example was Cyclone Freddy which hit Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar last March. In Malawi alone, the cyclone washed away an estimated 204,833 hectares of crops, killed over 1,200 and displaced another 563,771. Two weeks after the cyclone, the Department of Disaster Management Affairs reported that over 2,267,458 people, which translates to 523,564 households, had lost their crops and livestock to the cyclone.
Continental free trade area still on stand-by
African countries have pinned their hopes on the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AfCFTA) as a driver to significantly improve living standards on the continent. With agriculture being one of Africa’s main economic areas, it is expected to greatly benefit from AfCFTA.
Adopted in March 2018, the AfCFTA has still not been put in place but, if it is, the agreement that is viewed as “the world’s most youth- and women-friendly” has the potential to boost intra-continental trade by 81% by 2035 by eliminating about 90% of tariffs and enabling the free movement of people according to the World Bank. A World Bank report pointed out that the agreement would help to reduce the number of people facing extreme poverty by 40-50 million and attract a significant amount of foreign direct investment needed to improve infrastructure, implement new technology, improve skills and thus raise living standards.
Although the document officially came into force in May 2019, it has only been ratified by 46 of the 54 signatories, with experts pointing out that its implementation largely depends on political will.
