Why Can’t Africa Feed Itself?

By Kofi Akordor, The Daily Graphic 

Available data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) paint an abysmal picture of the food situation in Africa. Over 200 million Africans are malnourished.

Another 43 million require food aid, estimated to cost US$2 billion.

For those who may dismiss these figures as a figment of the imagination of bureaucrats in these organisations, I will suggest they make reference to television images of malnourished children from The Sudan, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Niger and other places on the continent.

These figures are revealing and disheartening, not only because they tell a story of poverty and suffering, but also because it is amazing that there could be such a massive shortage of food on a continent which, undoubtedly, has some of the most arable lands on earth.

So what could account for the situation where only South Africa is credited with food sufficiency on the African continent south of the Sahara?

The fact is, Africa’s problem with food sufficiency cannot be seen in isolation. It should be looked at alongside the continent’s general political, social and economic fortunes soon after most of the countries gained political independence from their colonial masters.

It is sad to relate that Africa has not been blessed with the type of stable environment and visionary leadership that can inspire growth and development.

Soon after independence, the continent had to grapple with the problem of freeing those countries still under colonial rule. A lot of resources, therefore, had to be committed into supporting the liberation movements that sprang up to fight colonial rule.

Those wars of liberation took a lot of time and resources and consequently diverted attention from pressing national development goals.

The East-West ideological confrontation at the time did not offer a level platform for Africa to approach its development agenda. The two superpowers — the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) — saw Africa as a pawn that could be manipulated to suit their ideological whims and caprices, to the detriment of the development of the continent.

Another problem was the numerous military coups which brought onto the political stage a lot of semi-educated dictators, most of whom enjoyed more the pleasures of office than any tangible achievement, such as offering qualitative and meaningful leadership that could bring about growth in their countries.

Just as the continent was emerging from the wars of liberation and military coups, another phenomenon, with devastating consequences, reared its head. I refer to the civil wars which ravaged countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Sudan, the countries of the Great Lakes Region (Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi), and lately Cote d’Ivoire.

These wars did not only cause suffering and loss of human lives, but also resulted in the dislocation of agricultural and commercial activities for as long as the conflicts lasted.

Apart from what could be described as avoidable conflicts, the continent also had to cope with unfavourable weather conditions, especially in the Sahelian region, and other natural disasters such as floods, pest invasions and the scourge of wild bushfires.

Some of these calamities could have been avoided or their impact reduced, had it not been for the corrupt nature of most African governments.

The greatest obstacle to agricultural development on the continent, however, is the lack of adequate investment in the sector by governments. The continent abounds in rivers and other water resources which can be harnessed for crop cultivation and livestock production.

It is a clear case of the lack of vision and poor planning for countries to see the waters of their rivers flow wastefully into the sea, while farmlands and grazing grounds remain dry. The perpetual reliance on rain-fed agriculture has not helped the continent’s efforts at attaining food sufficiency.

If you take our own country, Ghana, it would be realised, without any shred of doubt, that support for farmers, large, medium, small-scale and the purely subsistent, has not been the best. A huge chunk of the money voted for the agricultural sector ends up being used as salary for letter and speech writers, with very little going into actual agricultural development.

Another evidence of the lack of adequate investment in agriculture is the absence of storage facilities. Farm produce is left to rot during the bumper season, while scarcity becomes the order of the day a few months later.

There is very little commitment towards local food production and food security, since many government officials profit illicitly from food importers and, therefore, make little effort to encourage local farmers to produce enough to feed the nation.

The poultry sector experiences similar unfair competition from cheaper products from outside. At the end of the day, poultry farmers are compelled to abandon their farms and join the import trade. What that also means is that as a nation, we are always at the mercy of external forces and our food security cannot be guaranteed.

Other continents experience similar natural disasters as Africa does, but how they are able to cope, while we are always at the mercy of food aid from other places, is a matter for serious consideration by those who have taken up the mantle of leadership on the continent to solve.