Feeding Africa

After the agriculture heyday of 30 years ago, the
sector got scant attention, especially from African
presidents whose nations were well endowed
with natural resources, like oil-rich Nigeria. But
many African leaders are returning to a focus on
what their nations can grow.
Nigeria, for example, was once a major exporter
of groundnuts, or peanuts, cocoa and other
crops, and it was "food secure". It grew all its
people needed to eat. But last year Nigeria spent
over U.S.$70 billion importing food, including
products made from such crops as tomatoes
that can grow in abundance in Nigeria.
Nigeria's agriculture minister, Akinwumi Adesina,
whose doctorate from an American university is
in agricultural economics, is one of the new
leaders determined to reverse that food
dependence.
Nigeria, in order to build resilience and tackle food
insecurity through raising agricultural productivity
and food production, launched the Agricultural
Transformation Agenda in 2012. The overall goals
are to add 20 million metric tons of food to the
domestic food supply by 2015, create 3.5 million
jobs and to become a net exporter of food,
Adesina has said.
Calestous Juma, director of the Science,
Technology and Globalization Project at the Belfer
Center of Science and International Affairs at
Harvard University, said there is a "new
generation" of African leaders focusing on
agricultural transformation.
"Political leadership is a key driver of agricultural
investment in Africa," said Juma. "This should
now be followed by long-term national and
regional policies that guarantee consistency in
government commitment to agriculture. This is a
key role that the African Union can play by
maintaining focus on agricultural policy over the
next two decades."
Juma, author of the 2011 book "The New Harvest:
Agricultural Innovation in Africa"
has said that Africa, which has the largest share
of the world's uncultivated land, can feed itself in
a generation and be able to export products to
other regions of the world. But he said doing so
would require concerted investments in
infrastructure, technical training and creation of
regional as well as new international markets.
"Innovation in mobile communication, crop
insurance, post-harvest loss reduction and other
risk-reducing incentives will be essential for
raising agricultural productivity," Juma said. "But
the most important investments will be rural
infrastructure - power, roads, irrigation and
telecoms - and political commitment."
Last July, the Rockefeller Foundation hosted a
summit in Abuja, Nigeria, titled 'Realising the
Potential of Africa's Agriculture: Catalytic
Innovations for Growth", which brought together
agriculture and finance ministers, along with
other leaders from more than 23 African nations
to identify concrete ways to strengthen African
agricultural markets and 'value chains' to benefit
smallholder farmers.
The summit was part of a series of global
convenings hosted by the Foundation during its
centennial year.
Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller
Foundation, has said that across the continent
there has been a renewed commitment from
governments, non-governmental organisations
and the private sector to move agriculture from a
development challenge to a business opportunity.