Africa Agriculture’s potential-enough is enough (PART 1)

By Patrick Mayoh

The chocolate bar you had for your snack was probably made with Cocoa cultivated in Ivory Coast. The Flowers you offered your mum on mother’s day were possibly shipped over from Kenya to the UK. Africa accounts for 60% of the total world area of cultivable and fertile lands. So why is it that the continent is yet to have a green revolution on the scale of Asia and China in particular? Having read a well researched and thoroughly written article from MC KINSEY Quarterly I believe Africa’s Green revolution should depend on the combination of the four following key factors:

· Technology to boost productivity and optimise information among key stakeholders

· Benchmarking of China’s agricultural revolution

· Perceiving the big picture

· Adopting a market-based approach

All of these factors as I will briefly explain below will boost productivity, provide jobs and take millions of rural farmers out of poverty while expanding GDP growth for the continent.

Technology

The Kenyan stock exchange in partnership with Safaricom a mobile phone network operator in the country have allowed rural farmers in the country to exchange key pieces of information about market trends and the prices of different agricultural commodities through SMS (short message services).

In Uganda the European Union have supported an initiative designed to help rural farmers (women to be more specific) to exchange information through text messages about market updates on different goods.

Similar initiatives ranging from translation of market information into local languages to web applications designed to help farmers make meaningful decisions about their crops are taking place across the continent.

The bottom-line is, technology does play a great role when it comes to boosting productivity while providing key facts to farmers regarding crops and their prices. Governments’ efforts to reap the full benefits of the agricultural potentials of Africa, should take into account the positive impact technology could have in this sense.

Exchanging information through SMS is a good start in addition educating rural farmers as well as making new technologies available to them is a priority. This is all about making sure African rural farmers have at their disposal the technological tools to create the long awaited green revolution through availability of data and information about their work and the possibility to exchange information between with other peers across the sector.

Benchmarking China’s Model

In many ways Africa Differs from China. China is united, has a well organized central government, and boasts very strong infrastructure. Africa on the other hand is plagued with political instability, a blatant lack of adequate infrastructure (transportation and warehousing facilities for example) and in dire need of knowledge and experts in the field of agriculture.

However Africa could still implement (with success) some of the underlying principles behind China’s green revolution.

Firstly one of the reasons why China’s GDP keeps soaring dates back to the 1980s when the Government decided to prioritize agriculture as a means to boost the economy. The agricultural reform was not a peripheral objective but a key issue that had wide support from the Central Government. This in part explains why China decided to “open up” to the rest of the world. So the message is clear, Africa’s economic development is very dependent on a greater support from individual Governments of Agriculture. Bearing in mind the vast agricultural potentials of Africa (60% of the world cultivable area) there is a great incentive and rationale for making this a priority.

Barack Obama said in his speech Dakar that Africa does not need strong men but stronger institutions (paraphrasing). China has put in place excellent institutional capabilities at all levels; R&D, Micro-credit organizations and other organizations in charge of advising farmers on key issues ranging from irrigation to export and productivity issues. Africa does have the CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme) which has been put in place by the AU (African’s union) to advise member countries on key Agricultural issues like market trends and other related factors. More institutions like these with specific roles linked to specific aspects pertaining to Agriculture on the continent could make a major difference in boosting the agricultural productivity of the continent.

Lastly given the massive potentials Africa boasts in terms of cultivable/arable lands, investments should be directed towards building R&D facilities that could improve research and new developments in the sector within the continent. The field of Agronomics in China flourished as a desire to develop the best conditions to improve the Agriculture sector in the country. Africa should take notice and Universities should devote resources to build research centres and institutes that will prioritize the development of Agronomics as a key academic discipline on the continent. Germany’s universities have the best industrial and technical facilities because Germany by essence manufactures a lot of machinery and is one of the leading exporters in the world in that field. Likewise Africa has the potential to specialise in Agronomics and set the pace in Agricultural Research. Thus becoming the World’s basket for all kinds of Food, this is becoming the case in a sense but the possibilities are even bigger than one can think of.

Part 2 of my article will discuss the two remaining factors in my roadmap for changing and benefiting from Africa’s Agricultural potentials.

References

Acha Leke, Jens Riese and Sunil Sanghvi (2011) Sizing Africa’s Agricultural Opportunity MC KINSEY Quarterly

Steve Davis and Jonathan Woetzel (2011) Chinese Agriculture: a model for Africa MC KINSEY Quarterly

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Public_Sector/Management/Four_lessons_for_transforming_African_agriculture_2785

New Technologies for African Agriculture (2011) Afrique Avenir

http://www.afriqueavenir.org/en/2011/04/07/new-technologies-for-african-agriculture/