A
new World Bank report says that Africa’s farmers can potentially grow
enough food to feed the continent and avert future food crises if
countries remove cross-border restrictions on the food trade within the
region.
| World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC. |
According
to the Bank, the continent would also generate an extra USD20 billion
in yearly earnings if African leaders can agree to dismantle trade
barriers that blunt more regional dynamism. The report was released on the eve of an African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade recently.
With
as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger and
malnutrition in West Africa’s Sahel region, the Bank report urges
African leaders to improve trade so that food can move more freely
between countries and from fertile areas to those where communities are
suffering food shortages.
The
World Bank expects demand for food in Africa to double by the year 2020
as people increasingly leave the countryside and move to the
continent’s cities.
According
to the new report―Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to
regional trade in food staples ― rapid urbanization will challenge the
ability of farmers to ship their cereals and other foods to consumers
when the nearest trade market is just across a national border.
Countries
south of the Sahara, for example, could significantly boost their food
trade over the next several years to manage the deadly impact of
worsening drought, rising food prices, rapid population growth, and
volatile weather patterns.
With
many African farmers effectively cut off from the high-yield seeds, and
the affordable fertilizers and pesticides needed to expand their crop
production, the continent has turned to foreign imports to meet its
growing needs in staple foods.
“Africa
has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the
dinner tables of the continent’s families,” said Makhtar Diop, World
Bank Vice President for Africa.
“However,
this potential is not being realized because farmers face more trade
barriers in getting their food to market than anywhere else in the
world. Too often borders get in the way of getting food to homes and
communities which are struggling with too little to eat.”
The
new report suggests that if the continent’s leaders can embrace more
dynamic inter-regional trade, Africa’s farmers, the majority of whom are
women, could potentially meet the continent’s rising demand and benefit
from a major growth opportunity.
It
would also create more jobs in services such as distribution, while
reducing poverty and cutting back on expensive food imports. Africa’s
production of staple foods is worth at least USD50 billion a year.
Moreover,
the new report notes that only five percent of all cereals imported by
African countries come from other African countries while huge tracts of
fertile land, around 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated and
yields remain a fraction of those obtained by farmers elsewhere in the
world.
In
addition, Tanzania was cited as an example of the developing countries
in Africa especially in the East Africa region which has the best
agricultural policies such as Kilimo Kwanza which is aiming on boosting
small scale farmers across the country.
Transport
cartels are still common across Africa, and the incentives to invest in
modern trucks and logistics are weak. The World Bank report suggests
that countries in West Africa in particular could halve their transport
costs within 10 years if they adopted policy reforms that spurred more
competition within the region.
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