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Sub—Saharan Africa is one of the poorest regions of the world. Because most Africans work in agriculture, escaping such dire poverty depends on increased agricultural productivity to raise rural incomes, lower food prices, and stimulate growth in other economic sectors. Per capita agricultural production in sub—Saharan Africa has fallen, however, for much of the past half—century. Successes in African Agriculture investigates how to reverse this decline. Instead of cataloging failures, as many past studies have done, this book identifies episodes of successful agricultural growth in Africa and identifies processes, practices, and policies for accelerated growth in the future. The individual studies follow developments in, among other areas, the farming of maize in East and Southern Africa, cassava across the middle belt of Africa, cotton in West Africa, horticulture in Kenya, and dairying in East Africa. Drawing on these case studies and on consultations with agricultural specialists and politicians from across sub—Saharan Africa -- undertaken in collaboration with the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development -- the contributors identify two key determinants of positive agricultural performance: agricultural research to provide more productive and sustainable technologies to farmers and a policy framework that fosters market incentives for increasing production. The contributors discuss how the public and private sectors can best coordinate the convergence of both factors. Given current concerns about global food security, this book provides timely and important resources to policymakers and development specialists concerned with reversing the negative trends in food insecurity and poverty in Africa.
This book provides a thorough introduction to and examination of agricultural value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, the authors introduce the economic theory of agri-food value chains and value chain governance, focusing on domestic and regional trade in (and consumption of) food crops in a low-income country context. In addition to mainstream and heterodox thinking about value chain development, the book pays attention to political economy considerations. The book also reviews the empirical evidence on value chain development and performance in Africa. It adopts multiple lenses to examine agricultural value chains, zooming out from the micro level (e.g., relational contracting in a context of market imperfections) to the meso level (e.g., distributional implications of various value chain interventions, inclusion of specific social groups) and the macro level (underlying income, population and urbanization trends, volumes and prices, etc.).Furthermore, this book places value chain development in the context of a process the authors refer to as structural transformation 2.0, which refers to a process where production factors (labor, land and capital) move from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity agriculture. Finally, throughout the book the authors interpret the evidence in light of three important debates: (i) how competitive are rural factor and product markets, and what does this imply for distribution and innovation? (ii) what role do foreign investment and factor proportions play in the development of agri-food value chains in Africa? (iii) what complementary government policies can help facilitate a process of agricultural value chain transformation, towards high-productive activities and enhancing the capacity of value chains to generate employment opportunities and food security for a growing population.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, countries within Sub-Saharan Africa reached milestones that seemed impossible only ten years ago: macroeconomic stability, sustained economic growth, and improved governance. Continuing this pattern of success will require enhancing the region’s agricultural sector, in which a large proportion of poor people make a living. The authors of Strategies and Priorities for African Agriculture: Economywide Perspectives from Country Studies argue that, although the diversity of the region makes generalization difficult, increasing staple-crop production is more likely to reduce poverty than increasing export-crop production. This conclusion is based on case studies of ten low-income African countries that reflect varying levels of resource endowments and development stages. The authors also recommend increased, more efficient public investment in agriculture and agricultural markets and propose new directions for future research. The last ten years have been an encouraging time for one of the world’s poorest regions; this book offers an analysis of how recent, promising trends can be sustained into the future.
African agriculture is a sleeping giant. Agribusiness remains in its infancy in most sub-Saharan African countries. Many of them now pay higher prices for imported food products and struggle to keep inflationary pressures under control. Given the ...
This book presents the key demographic, economic, and environmental challenges for agriculture in Africa and proposes courses of action for Africa to be successful in its agricultural transitions.
Future climatic and agro-ecological changes in Africa are uncertain and associated with high degrees of spatial and temporal variability and this change is differently simulated within divergent climate-crop models and in controlled crop breeding stations. Furthermore, uncertainty emerges in local contexts, not just in response to climatic systems, but to social, economic, and political systems, and often with implications for the appropriateness and adoption of technologies or the success of alternative cropping systems. This book examines the challenges of adaptation in smallholder farming in Africa, analysing the social, economic, political and climatic uncertainties that impact on agriculture in the region and the range of solutions proposed. Drawing on case studies of genetically modified crops, conservation agriculture, and other 'climate smart' solutions in eastern and southern Africa, the book identifies how uncertainties are framed 'from above' as well experienced 'from below', by farmers themselves. It provides a compelling insight into why ideas about adaptation emerge, from whom, and with what implications. This book offers a unique perspective and will be highly relevant to students of climate change adaptation, food security and poverty alleviation, as well as policy-makers and field practitioners in international development and agronomy.
Emerging Development of Agriculture in East Africa offers case studies that find promise in many new innovations. Farmers in Uganda have quickly learned the management of NERICA rice (a new upland rice variety), which is being disseminated in a limited way in the region. Also in Uganda, farmers living in more remote areas have improved access to markets due to the expansion of mobile phones. In Kenya, improved milk marketing systems have increased efficiency and led to tangible increases in the adoption of dairy production technologies. And the adoption of intensive dairy production systems in Kenya and Uganda are providing significant amounts of manure and positively impacting yields of maize and banana.
Awakening Africa's Sleeping Giant' explores the feasibility of restoring international competitiveness and growth in African agriculture through the identification of products and production systems that can underpin rapid development of a competitive commercial agriculture. Based on a careful examination of the factors that contributed to the successes achieved in Brazil and Thailand, as well as comparative analysis of evidence obtained through detailed case studies of three African countries--Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zambia--the authors argue that opportunities abound for farmers in Africa to.
As development donors invest hundreds of millions of dollars into improved crops designed to alleviate poverty and hunger, Africa has emerged as the final frontier in the global debate over agricultural biotechnology. The first data-driven assessment of the ecological, social, and political factors that shape our understanding of genetic modification, Africa's Gene Revolution surveys twenty years of efforts to use genomics-based breeding to enhance yields and livelihoods for African farmers. Matthew Schnurr considers the full range of biotechnologies currently in commercial use and those in development - including hybrids, marker-assisted breeding, tissue culture, and genetic engineering. Drawing on interviews with biotechnology experts alongside research conducted with more than two hundred farmers across eastern, western, and southern Africa, Schnurr reveals a profound incongruity between the optimistic rhetoric that accompanies genetic modification technology and the realities of the smallholder farmers who are its intended beneficiaries. Through the lens of political ecology, this book demonstrates that the current emphasis on improved seeds discounts the geographic, social, ecological, and economic contexts in which the producers of these crops operate. Bringing the voices of farmers to the foreground of this polarizing debate, Africa's Gene Revolution contends that meaningful change will come from a reconfiguration not only of the plant's genome, but of the entire agricultural system.
The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.