Africa can help feed Africa : removing barriers to regional trade in food staples

Abstract

Africa is not achieving its potential in food trade. The growing demand for food in Africa is increasingly being met by imports from the global market. This coupled with rising global food prices is leading to ever mounting food import bills. On top of this, population growth, increasing urbanization and changing patterns of demand are expected to double demand over the next 10 years. Clearly something has to change. Business as usual with regard to food staples is not sustainable. The potential to increase agricultural production in Africa is enormous. Yields for many crops are a fraction of what farmers elsewhere in the world are achieving and output could easily increase two to three times if farmers were to use update seeds and technologies. Also large swathes of fertile land in Africa remain idle. For example, the Guinea Savannah zone covers around 600 million hectares in West Africa, through Uganda and Tanzania and encompassing Malawi, Zambia, Angola, and Mozambique, which is around one-third of the total area of sub-Saharan Africa. Of this, 400 million hectares can be used for agriculture. However, less than 10 percent of this area is being cultivated, suggesting huge unutilized agricultural potential (World Bank 2009). Open regional trade is essential because demand is becoming increasingly concentrated in cities that need to be fed from food production areas throughout the continent.

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