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    At least 3 kg of food grown in Mozambique’s fields is lost due to inefficient processing, transportation, and storage-World Bank

    A change to hotter conditions is a looming challenge in the agricultural sector in the Southern African region

    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    Natafim SA expands drip-line manufacturing plant

    Natafim SA expands drip-line manufacturing plant

    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

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    Macfrut 2023,Turkey to participate in International Blueberry Days

  • Africa
    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

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    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

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    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

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    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

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    It is through collective efforts and pursuit of mutual agreements and regional approaches and strategies that SADC can fully address national and intercountry investments on agriculture

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    Maize planter calibration to improve your profitability

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    IMPROVING WATER QUALITY TO ENSURE SUCCESS OF BROILER BUSINESS

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    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

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    President Nyusi excited about the prospects the new vegetable oil factory brings

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    Russian company to make a humanitarian fertilisers shipment to Africa

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  • News
    • All
    • Crops
    • Diary
    • Fresh Produce
    • Game & Wildlife
    • Livestock
    At least 3 kg of food grown in Mozambique’s fields is lost due to inefficient processing, transportation, and storage-World Bank

    A change to hotter conditions is a looming challenge in the agricultural sector in the Southern African region

    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    Natafim SA expands drip-line manufacturing plant

    Natafim SA expands drip-line manufacturing plant

    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

    Farming in South Africa; Six Things That Need Urgent Attention in 2023

    Farming in South Africa; Six Things That Need Urgent Attention in 2023

    Macfrut 2023,Turkey to participate in International Blueberry Days

    Macfrut 2023,Turkey to participate in International Blueberry Days

  • Africa
    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    AfDB commits $10 billion to fight food insecurity

    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

    Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

    Africa’s new agriculture pledge on the cards

    Africa’s new agriculture pledge on the cards

    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

    EIMA International 2022, a Global Event Returns

    EIMA International 2022, a Global Event Returns

    2026 declared World Year of Pastoralism

    2026 declared World Year of Pastoralism

  • Company
    Norway pledges to build resilience of small aquaculture farmers in East and Southern Africa

    Norway pledges to build resilience of small aquaculture farmers in East and Southern Africa

    Tropical Cyclone Ana: WFP ready to provide food and logistics support for rescue and relief operations

    Tropical Cyclone Ana: WFP ready to provide food and logistics support for rescue and relief operations

    Mozambique authorities seek to combat biodiversity devastation by clamping on illicit fishing

    Mozambique authorities seek to combat biodiversity devastation by clamping on illicit fishing

    World Bank, UN launch programme to help Mozambique improve forestry management

    World Bank, UN launch programme to help Mozambique improve forestry management

    Basis of the Nampula economy calls for a re-orientation of efforts towards the most profitable cash crops, Says Nyusi

    Basis of the Nampula economy calls for a re-orientation of efforts towards the most profitable cash crops, Says Nyusi

    Sporadic rains worry Zambezi farmers

    UN announces US$1.2mln animal health programme for Mozambique

  • International
    Macfrut 2023,Turkey to participate in International Blueberry Days

    Macfrut 2023,Turkey to participate in International Blueberry Days

    First Special Agriculture Industrial Zone launched in Mozambique

    EIMA 2022: Unlocking the growth potential of Africa’s Agribusiness

    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

    Italian industry Growing Turnover despite the Economic Situation

    Italian industry Growing Turnover despite the Economic Situation

    EIMA International 2022, a Global Event Returns

    EIMA International 2022, a Global Event Returns

    African women playing a critical role in local economic development

    Lusophone countries benefit from Africa Investment Forum

  • Markets
    It is through collective efforts and pursuit of mutual agreements and regional approaches and strategies that SADC can fully address national and intercountry investments on agriculture

    It is through collective efforts and pursuit of mutual agreements and regional approaches and strategies that SADC can fully address national and intercountry investments on agriculture

    Africa’s local ownership drive must balance foreign investment

    President Nyusi reminds investors of the agricultural opportunities available in Mocuba District

    Russia-Ukraine war poses upsides risks on African agriculture: Economist

    Russia-Ukraine war poses upsides risks on African agriculture: Economist

    Mozambique Fisheries on high vigilance following outbreak of fish disease in Malawi

    Mozambique Fisheries on high vigilance following outbreak of fish disease in Malawi

    Govt’s initiative to boost cotton and cashew income

    Govt’s initiative to boost cotton and cashew income

    Maize planter calibration to improve your profitability

    Maize planter calibration to improve your profitability

  • Equipment
    IMPROVING WATER QUALITY TO ENSURE SUCCESS OF BROILER BUSINESS

    IMPROVING WATER QUALITY TO ENSURE SUCCESS OF BROILER BUSINESS

    AWARD targets to improve African smallholders’ livelihoods

    AWARD targets to improve African smallholders’ livelihoods

    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

    Agricultural machinery: High demand on the world market

    African women playing a critical role in local economic development

    Lusophone countries benefit from Africa Investment Forum

    President Nyusi excited about the prospects the new vegetable oil factory brings

    President Nyusi excited about the prospects the new vegetable oil factory brings

    Russian company to make a humanitarian fertilisers shipment to Africa

    Russian company to make a humanitarian fertilisers shipment to Africa

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Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops

Ian by Ian
January 20, 2023
in Africa, Business, Crops, News
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Africa’s Vast Arable Land Underutilised for Cash and Food Crops
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Concerns are rife that while Africa is growing more crops, these are not for food and that on the current trajectory, present food import costs into Africa, now estimated at 55 billion US dollars a year, could double by 2030.

Three crop species-maize, wheat and rice meet an estimated 50 percent of the global requirements for proteins and calories, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Yet despite Africa’s expensive agricultural sector, the continent’s maize, rice, and wheat account for 7, 5, and 4 percent of the world’s production, respectively. But experts say pitting food crops against cash crops is not the right conversation to have.

“The most productive conversation should be firmly centred on how to support farmers to produce more food for everyone and to export even more as this will improve the farmer’s quality of life and get themselves out of poverty,” said Hafez Ghanem, former Regional Vice President of the World Bank Group and current non-resident Senior Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution.

He shared the mistake many countries made after independence was to try to ensure cheap food for people in the cities by keeping farmgate prices low and by trying to coerce farmers into producing certain food crops. The result was that the farmer became poor. If the farmer is poor, they cannot produce, and in the long run, everybody becomes poor and hungry.

“No country can produce all the foods that it needs. We will have to export some and produce some. If we start increasing yields for cereals, for instance, through increased use of quality seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation, farmers can produce more food crops without interfering with cash crops production, and the farmer will be richer,” said Ghanem.

According to the Africa Agriculture Status Report 2022, ‘For Africa, accelerating the transformation of our food systems is more vital than ever. Africa has a few other incentives for transforming its food system; with one of the most degraded agricultural soils in the world and increasing droughts, Africa will face significant exposure to water-related climate risks in the future’.

The report further revealed that ateast 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s rural population depends on agriculture as its primary source of income. More than 95 percent of agriculture is reliant on rainfall, according to the report.

The report finds that the consequences of unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, extreme drought, and low soil carbon will further lower crop yields exposing Africa’s poorest communities to increasingly intense climate- and water-related hazards with disastrous results. Ghanem does not believe that the issue of food security in Africa is a consequence of producing too many cash crops. The real issue, he said, is two-fold.

“The first part of the issue is that, in general, the productivity of land under cultivation for both cash and food crops is low. We need to increase land yields for both cash and food crops. The solution, I do not believe, is to stop exporting cash crops to produce more food. The second part of the issue is the challenge presented by climate change and we need to do much more to make agriculture more resilient to climate change,” explained Ghanem.

Further to that, he said that concerns that there is the prioritisation of cash crops over food crops are misplaced. “Think about the profile of farmers in Africa. We are talking about very smallholder farmers. In countries such as Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, farmers are making much more profits producing cocoa or coffee than producing rice, for example. We cannot ask our farmers to produce crops that are lower yielding and therefore less profitable,” noted Ghanem.

Any solution that we propose for food security, he cautions, has to bear in mind that the most food insecure and poorest people in Africa are in the rural areas. Against this backdrop, experts such as Ghanem see no conflict between the production of food and cash crops, saying that Africa has vast lands to produce both. Outside of countries such as Egypt and other countries in North Africa, he said the rest of the continent has vast and available arable land.

Data by FAO shows Africa is home to an estimated 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Ghanem, therefore, said the solution is to facilitate farmers to irrigate their lands and access high-quality seeds and fertilizer. Africa needs about $40 to $70 billion in investment from the public sector and another $80 billion from the private sector annually to sustain food production on the continent, according to Africa Agriculture Status Report.

Additionally, Ghanem said investing in technology that can produce critical inputs such as fertilizer and climate-resilient high-quality seeds will prove highly productive in the future. “Take, for instance, fertilizer which is expensive because it is imported. The establishment of some of the world’s largest fertilizer-producing companies in Nigeria and Morocco, calling for such investments in other parts of the continent. Subsidies for farm inputs such as fertilizer are not the solution and that producing inputs that farmers need in-country or at least on the continent will set the agricultural sector on a resilience path to greater productivity, enough food for all, and profitability,” concluded Ghanem.

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