São Paulo – Africa has the potential to meet its food needs and prevent future food shortage crises with the production from its own farmers, provided that African governments lift the existing barriers to food trade between the continent’s countries. These assertions have been culled from World Bank report Africa can help feed Africa: Removing Barriers to Regional Trade in Food Staples, released this week by the institution.
According to the World Bank, the African continent could also generate an extra US$ 20 billion in earnings each year if only governments would lift barriers which prevent a more dynamic regional trade. “With as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger and malnutrition in West Africa’s Sahel region, the Bank report urges African leaders to improve trade so that food can move more freely between countries and from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages. The World Bank expects demand for food in Africa to double by the year 2020 as people increasingly leave the countryside and move to the continent’s cities,” the document claims.
According to the report, if trade between neighbouring countries were to increase, then nations located south of the Sahara, for instance, could significantly increase their food sales in the next few years, thus helping reduce the impact of drought, of high food costs, high population growth, and weather variations.
“Africa has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent’s families,” according to Makhtar Diop, the World Bank vice president for Africa. “However, this potential is not being realized because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to market than anywhere else in the world. Too often borders get in the way of getting food to homes and communities which are struggling with too little to eat,” the executive says.
The document suggests that if the continent’s leaders embrace more dynamic interregional trade, the African farmers, who are mostly women, could potentially meet the growing demand in the continent and benefit from a major growth opportunity. The institution believes that could also create more job opportunities in areas such as distribution, in addition to reducing poverty and high food import costs. According to the World Bank, staple food production in Africa is worth at least US$ 50 billion a year.
The report also shows that only 5% of all grain imported by African countries originate from other African countries, while huge tracts of fertile land, approximately 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated and productivity remains but a fraction of those obtained by farmers elsewhere in the world.
“The key challenge for the continent is how to create a competitive environment in which governments embrace credible and stable policies that encourage private investors and businesses to boost food production across the region, so that farmers get the capital, the seeds, and the machinery they need to become more efficient, and families get enough good food at the right price,” said Paul Brenton, World Bank’s lead economist for Africa and the report’s main author.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
