Since I wrote this, it's OK with me, but someone should proof-read it: RG

Perpectives in crop production in Africa

Introduction

According to World Bank data (WB 2018), over the last ten years, agriculture has contributed, on average, a stable percentage of about 4% to GDP worldwide, down from 8% in 1996.  In sub-Saharan Africa, the average remains high at 23% with lowest values in southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and South-Africa) and the highest (above 25%) in eastern Africa and the Sahelian countries (Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Mali) and the neighbouring Central African Republic. Both Chad and Sierra Leone are above 50% while values for north African countries is at 10% or just above (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Agriculture as share of total GDP  in 2014. Source: OECD-FAO 2016, based on World Bank data. DRC: Democratic republic of the Congo.

When considering, in addition, the share of the population that derives its income from agriculture (29% worldwide),  at 55% Africa clearly emerges as the continent where agriculture most directly affects the livelihoods of people.  Highest values occur in the same groups of countries as above as well as in the centre of the continent. Values in excess of 70% are common (e.g. in Ethiopia, Madagascar) and sometimes reach 90% (Burundi). The high percentages also stress the lack of diversification of African farming (OECD-FAO 2016). The comparison of the proportion of people who derive their livelihoods from agriculture with the contribution of agriculture to GDP indicates a generally low level of efficiency of farming, for instance in countries such as Zimbabwe (67% and 11%, ratio 6.0)  and Cameroon (62% and 16%, ratio 4.0).  The most favourable ratios include the Sudan (33% and 40%, ratio 0.8), Tunisia (12% and 10%, ratio 1.2) and  the  most populous country in Africa, Nigeria (27% and 21%, ratio 1.3).

The section below draws loosely from a recent publication sponsored by the World Bank   and edited by Christiaansen and Demery (2018)1. The report lists and critically assesses “conventional wisdoms” about African agriculture under four headings:  (1) Market engagement, (2) The smallholder setting, (3) Backward technology and (4) A Risky business. 

Subsistence farming

Both items (1) and (2) really refer to “subsistence farming”, i.e. the fact that farmers grow their own food with generally limited access to markets. According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, smallholder farms constitute approximately 80% of all farms in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and employ 175 million people directly.  Christiaansen and Demery (2018) conclude that, among the “wisdoms” about African farming that remain true, we must include a generally limited access to markets and to credit, and the fact that farms are operated as family units cultivating small fields (NEPAD 2013).  Other “wisdoms” are evolving, for instance the market of agricultural land is expanding, resulting from changing land ownership patterns away from communal ownership. The authors also find that the role of African women in agriculture , who traditionally cook and cultivate, is decreasing. OECD-FAO (2016) however stress  that “in many countries women constitute at least half of the labour force”. 

One of the recent changes is income diversification, i.e. non-farm income is increasing in rural areas along with a loss of the income seasonality: more and more rural people now tend to engage in some small agribusiness and trade crops throughout the year. An interesting observation is also that fluctuations on African markets are mostly unconnected from global markets, and that a major component of prices remains the seasonal component brought about by the dry/wet season cycle which predominates over much of the continent and largely conditions prices .  

Technological and socio-economic context

Regarding (3) “backward technology” , the World Bank report notes that there is an increase in the use of inputs (e.g. mineral fertiliser) in some of the most populous countries such as Nigeria and Ethiopia and that “technology” also includes such factors as improved varieties. Ward et al (2016) quote work by Walker and colleagues according to which more than 60% of some crops cultivated in Africa (wheat, maize, soybean) consist of improved varieties and hybrids. It appears that the national agricultural policies and context play a major role in the adoption of improved practices by farmers. In general, however,  “agriculture is not intensifying as much as expected, given population pressure and better market access.” In particular, mechanization and irrigation and cropping intensities remain well below their potential. It seems obvious that prevailing poverty, which includes low levels of education and the limited access to credit also result, to varying extents,  from a lack of investments and commitment to agriculture of both governments and other institutions, such as national banks (Mittal 2009, ATV 2010). The same applies to crop insurance which remains an underdeveloped sector in Africa, despite about 20 years of “pilot” initiatives, mainly pushed by the World Bank and other development actors (Vargas-Hill, 2010).     

The WB report  by Christiaansen and Demery makes an important observation about Africa’s agricultural technology debate, “that input use may not always be profitable, because of poor soil, poor-quality fertilizer, high transport costs, limited market access, and so forth. The implicit profitability assumption of modern input use deserves further scrutiny”. In other words: in many cases it is the overall context which is not conducive to the development of African agriculture.  In fact, the World Economic Forum blog (WEF 2016) lists largely the same factors as the WB report, but includes cross sector collaboration  as a “key component of successfully being able to execute investment commitments”; this largely coincides with the “inclusive growth” promoted under NEPAD. 

Two-thirds of the respondents to a survey on enabling environments by GrowAfrica (2018) “recognized that companies cannot overcome specific constraints within value chains and market systems, unless they work with public-sector partners, and they called for improvements in this area”. This observation is at the basis of the African Development corridors which aim at providing an enabling environment for most socio-economic sectors (education, agriculture, transport and communications, energy) in relatively limited areas (corridors) under public/private and development partners cooperation arrangement. Based on the experience in other parts of the world (North-East Thailand, Brazilian Cerrado), it is conjectured that the more developed areas will act as examples and will boost development “by contagion” in other areas. The February 2015 CropWatch bulletin (CropWatch 2015) has additional detail, including info on rather optimistic assessments of the global potential of African agriculture, including for agricultural exports,  by the World Bank (2009) and Ferguson et al (2011). Only time will tell is the optimisms was justified in a context where the current African population is close to one billion, and projected to increase to 2.1 by 2050, increasing the share of the African population to 22% (from about 13% currently). The question of exportable surpluses in the future is constrained by local demand for agricultural food and feeds, the shrinking share of “available” land, land degradation (conservation agriculture is developing but slowly, ACT 2014), competition with other sectors such as tourism (national parks) and mining, commodity prices (Feed Africa 2016) and climate change. For the latter, the recent 2015-16 El Niño drought was already mentioned and covered in detailed in previous CropWatch bulletins. Whether the 2015-16 drought prefigures future conditions is unknown.    

Environmental risks

Under (4), “A risky business” the Christiaansen and Demery report focuses on price risk, a subject which the present analysis mentioned under “Subsistence farming” above. The report also stresses that “The risks affecting African farmers go well beyond droughts”. 

While correct, the statement needs to be clarified. Most food insecurity on the continent is currently indeed man-made and brought about by war and resulting refugee movements in, but extending well beyond the Horn of Africa. The subject was covered in some detail in the August 2017 CropWatch bulletin (CropWatch 2017a). It remains that the continent is also confronted with chronic deficiencies in climate, in particular climatically very variable (i.e. risky because unpredictable) arid and semi-arid areas. According to Peel et al (2007), only 31% of the continent is “tropical” (Köppen’s “A” tropical climates defined by temperature; they may be dry) and 12% is temperate (Köppen’s “C” climate, a category defined based on temperature) , mainly at high latitudes and elevations. Twenty countries, making up more than  half (57%) of the continent belongs to Köppen’s “B” climates which suffers from some form of water shortage (from outright desert to several of “semi-arid” climate). Semi-arid climates explain why rangeland and livestock-based farming systems play an essential part in African Agriculture. The issue was, again, covered in a previous issue of the CropWatch bulletins (CropWatch 2017b). According to Ward et al 2016 “Dryland areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) contain one-half of the region’s population and three-quarters of its poor.” 126 million hectares are cultivated  drylands (two thirds of the continent’s arable land) , but only 5% is irrigated (Figure 2). 

Figure 2: percentage of irrigated land. Red: up to 20%; green more than 20% and up to 70%; white: unirrigated. Based on Siebert at al, 2013. 

An additional factor to mention is the 2015-16 El Niño drought which has badly affected food production, health and the overall well-being of  millions of people in eastern and southern Africa (IRI 2015, RISCURA 2015, IFPRI 2016, WHO 2016).  The previous large humanitarian crises in Africa were those of the West African Sahel (from the early sixties to the mid eighties) and the Ethiopian droughts of the mid-eighties. Droughts and the resulting humanitarian crises were widely assumed to be a “thing of the past”. Currently (February 2018) there is again talk in parts of South Africa of declaring a National Disaster because of drought (Reuters 2018; Bloomberg, 2018). Much media coverage focuses on “zero day” when one of the largest South-African cities will run out of water, and on wine production, but the issue clearly goes well beyond cities, affecting agricultural production in Western Cape province at large.

Trends and potential developments

Altogether, both the reports by OECD-FAO (2016) and by Christiaansen and Demery (2018) depict a more dynamic situation than generally adopted. The first, in particular, stresses that “magatrends” are at work in African agriculture; they affect demography (overall population growth (1), the development of a middle class (2) and rapid urbanisation (3)). There is also (4) a fast development of information and communication technologies, which affect all sectors of the economy, including farming. For instance, Nigeria has developed a large scale registration system of farmers onto “electronic-wallets” to facilitate fertilizer subsidy payments (Feed Africa 2016). It is also expected that modern technology including remote sensing will improve the current shortage of reliable statistical data (Nakweya, 2017). 

One of the megatrends is changing food demand patterns  (5), in particular increased demand for meat and bread and the products of organic agriculture (UNEP-UNCTAD 2008). According to Feed Africa (2016), “net food imports, which are expected to grow from US$35bn in 2015 to over US$110bn by 2025” constitute a powerful driver to increase agricultural production.

Because of the large share of agriculture in the GDP, agriculture contributes more than elsewhere to overall development. “Within each of the four sub-regions, the five biggest crops contribute more than 45% of total crop production value, with maize being the single most important staple crop”. Rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and plantains play the dominant role in Eastern and Western Africa, Eastern and Central Africa, Eastern Africa, Western and Eastern Africa and Eastern and Central Africa, respectively. 

While production has generally kept pace with population growth, the increase was achieved through horizontal expansion of land, as the continent – contrary to other areas – is relatively well provided with currently uncropped areas with agricultural potential, even if protected areas are excluded. Land is indeed available as illustrated by land acquisitions in Africa by foreign investors or countries (sometimes termed “land grab”). Little detail  is available but estimates of the total area concerned sometimes reach up to 30 million hectares (Deininger and Byerlee, 2011). The same source indicates that potentially available cropland with high agro-ecological potential and low population density that is currently uncultivated reaches about 200 million hectares, of which 50% is less than 6 hours away from markets (figures 3 and 4).  According to table 5.2 in  CropWatch (2015), the total potential increase in area for all crops in Africa reaches 130%, significantly less than projected population increases. Severe shortage of land and water is confined to northern Africa, parts of the Sahel, including areas in northern Nigeria. Water shortage occurs predominantly in the Nile valley in North Sudan and Egypt.  According to the yield gap figure (Figure 4), large gap predominate almost everywhere, indicating the equally large potential for yield improvement. 

In fact, some authoritative African sources even view the untapped agricultural potential as one of the contributing factors de poverty and food insecurity (Feed Africa 2016) and stress the potential for cash-crops that are well established in the continent, such as cocoa, coffee, cotton and cashew. 

Figure 3: Human pressure on land and water. Source of data: FAO, 2011.

Figure 4:  Ratio between actual crop production in the year 2000 and that potentially achievable under advanced farming in current cultivated land for a combination of major crops. Source: FAO, 2011.  

However, in countries where land is relatively short, the expansion of areas was achieved at the expense of fallow land. Such areas are relatively limited in the continent (Figure 5) and occur mostly in the monsoon rainfall maize growing areas of the South Africa North-East, the Great Lakes region and the Highands of Eastern Africa, west Africa – especially Nigeria and Niger, and North Africa. It does not affect most of equatorial Africa and Madagascar. 

Figure 5: Percentage of cropland per pixel. Data from Fritz et al 2015.

Actually, agricultural productivity by labourer (i.e. mechanization, use of inputs, improved varieties, irrigation) has increased by 1.6 over the last 30 years, but nevertheless less than in Asia where the factor reached 2.5 (OECD-FAO, 2016).  Feed Africa (2016) has put forward an ambitions plan to eliminate poverty, hunger and malnutrition by 2025, and make Africa a net food exporter by developing those sectors where Africa has a comparative advantage. The ambitious plan  call for coordinated investments between 315 and 400 billion US$ in farming, infrastructure and agribusinesses. According to Ward et al (2016), the cost of developing the irrigation potential irrigation in sub-Saharan drylands amounts to 60 billion US$ to develop 10 million Ha of new irrigation. Under a “medium cost” and economically viable scenario, they put the cost of large-scale irrigation at 12000 US$/ha and, for small-scare irrigation, at 4500 US$/Ha. This compares with a situation where public expenditure in African agriculture has remained about constant at 6% of agricultural GDP since the 1980s (Akroyd and Smith, 2007).  The target defined by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), one of the priorities defined by the  New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) programme of the African union is 10%. Currently, only one country in five reaches the target (NEPAD 2013)

In confirmation of the yield gap map in Figure 4, Ward et al (2016) state that “considerable technical potential exists for increasing productivity in drylands agriculture, particularly in cereals, roots and tubers, pulses, and oil crops” (for a map of African drylands, refer to CropWatch 2017b). According to Figure 5, however, the potential for the expansion of cultivated land is limited.

There is a risk that the development of a large commercial agricultural sector  will creating an environment where small scale farmers are uanble to compete with large businesses, exacerbating  their poverty. On the contrary, WEF 2015 sees the potential partnership between agribusinesses and smallholders a one of the most promising drivers of the development of African Agriculture.

This may be an optimistic view. Unless their access to credit is improved dramatically smallholder farmers will be unable to increase on-farm investments in productivity because of their limited capacity to “manage the risk-return trade-offs” when moving towards intensified agriculture (Livingston et al 2011) or agricultural innovations in general (NEPAD 2103). This is why some authors (Agada, 2016) insist that there is still ample scope to improve rainfed agriculture among others because this will benefit smallholders directly. The intensification of agriculture in general  and the development of large scale commercial farming in Africa, however, is not an option; it is a necessity.

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