How can the best of science and technology be harnessed to help Africa increase its agricultural productivity, profitability and sustainability, thereby contributing to improved food security for all? How, precisely, can we produce higher crop yields and more nutritious foods from thinning soils, making food both affordable and accessible to increasing numbers of people? What are the larger socio-economic and political conditions necessary for the effective use of science and technology in both the public and private sectors?
To answer these questions, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan requested that the InterAcademy Council (IAC) engage leading scientific, economic, and technological experts from around the world - but primarily from Africa - to identify how best to realize the promise and potential of African agriculture. This report is the result. Written by the IAC Panel on Agricultural Productivity in Africa, it details a number of concrete steps that the scientific community - working closely with farmers, governments and industry - can take to avert the risk of famine and relieve human suffering for millions of Africans in the years ahead.
The focus of this report is on embracing science and technology not simply to produce a substantial increase in agricultural productivity, but also to ensure that the families of Africa become food secure and obtain the full range of nutrients that they need every day.
Widespread food insecurity exists throughout Africa.
Food security means far more than having sufficient food to meet human needs on a national basis. In fact, food security often has less to do with food availability than with access to food. Access is a hugely elusive and complex problem, a problem complicated not only by low family incomes, but also by lack of roads and the distribution infrastructure needed to move food swiftly from place to place. Other important factors include access to safe drinking water, primary health care and environmental hygiene - all of which play a key role in maintaining good health and reducing the intestinal infections that can negate the benefits of a nutritious diet.
More than 60 percent of malnourished Africans live in Eastern Africa, with more than half of the populations in the Congo Democratic Republic and Mozambique affected. Similarly, Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia show malnutrition prevalence rates between 40 and 50 percent.
On the other hand, West Africa as a whole has countered the trend in the rest of the continent, with its malnutrition falling dramatically in recent years. This good news shows that, with a concerted effort, movement away from hunger and an inadequate diet is possible. The nations that have made the progress are Benin, Ghana and Nigeria. Nigeria's prevalence rate is low, but because of its large population, the country nevertheless accounts for 22 percent of the food impoverished poor in West and Central Africa.
The IAC Panel envisions an African future where increased agricultural productivity, improved food security and an enhanced sustainability of agro-ecosystems can be achieved. Agricultural research and development investments are among the most crucial determinants of agricultural productivity. The near stagnant economies in parts of Africa are, to a large extent, a reflection of a stagnant agriculture. Science and technology can directly contribute to food security not only by the introduction of improved crops and cropping practices, labour-saving technologies, and better communications - but also through an improved quality of food storage, processing, packaging and marketing.
African agriculture has a unique set of features that make it very different from Asia, where the Green Revolution has had a pervasive impact. These include:
In contrast to Asia - where irrigated rice-wheat systems predominate and thus where improved rice and wheat varieties could make a major difference - the diverse African situation implies that no single magic 'technological bullet' is available for radically improving African agriculture. A comprehensive set of strategies will thus be necessary in Africa for the effective harnessing of science and technology to meet human needs. As a consequence, more investment in a wider range of agricultural research and development will be required in Africa than was the case in Asia.
The IAC Panel concludes that African agriculture will require numerous 'rainbow evolutions' that differ in both nature and extent among the many different types of farming systems and institutions throughout Africa - rather than a single Green Revolution.
African farmers pursue a wide range of farming systems that vary both across and within the major agro-ecological zones of Africa. Agro-ecological zones are land regions sharing similar combinations of soil, landform and climatic characteristics. The particular parameters used in the definition of these zones focus attention on the climatic and soil-related requirements of crops and on the management systems under which the crops are grown. A farming system is a population of crop and livestock enterprises that share similar patterns of farm activities and household livelihoods, including their degree of crop-livestock integration and their scale. Unlike other regions of the world where food production and food security are based primarily on a limited number of farming systems, in Africa these depend on multiple farming systems in a wide array of different agro-ecological zones. Diversity is the norm in African farming systems throughout the continent. At the level of the individual farm unit, farmers diversify further, typically growing 10 or more crops. Seventeen distinct farming systems are identified in Africa: maize-mixed, cereal/root crop mixed, root crop, agro-pastoral millet/sorghum, highland perennial, forest based, highland temperate mixed, pastoral, tree crop, commercial-largeholder and small-holder, coastal artisanal fishing, irrigated, rice/tree crop, sparse agriculture (arid), urban based, highland mixed, and rainfed mixed. Most of these African farming systems are characterized by weathered soils of low inherent fertility and high fragility, by a declining soil fertility due to population growth and a minimal use of external inputs, and by highly variable rainfall - especially in the drier rainfed systems. For the foreseeable future, multiple farming systems must become more productive to generate the increases in food necessary to feed the hungry in Africa.
The IAC Panel concludes that, because of the many farming systems used to feed Africa, regionally mediated, rather than continent-wide strategies, will be required to address the diverse problems of African food productivity and food security.
Four farming systems show the most promise for increasing African food security. Given the situation described above, the question arises as to how to determine which farming systems, among so many, could potentially contribute the most to increased agricultural productivity and improved food security in Africa. To answer this question, the IAC Panel has used two main indicators - the extent of malnutrition among children and the economic value of agricultural production - to assess the potential of each African farming system for meeting these goals.
The first indicator reflects the extent of the malnutrition that needs to be overcome to achieve food security. The second indicator gauges the potential for agricultural productivity gains to generate increased real incomes for farmers and consumers. The greater the malnutrition, the more the productivity gains will benefit those most in need of improved food and nutrition security. A system is considered a priority system if both the production/ productivity potential and the extent of malnutrition are high.
Based on this analysis, the IAC Panel concludes that the following four African farming systems have the greatest potential for reducing malnutrition and improving agricultural productivity:
