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Africa: The Shame of Food
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The East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Oscar Kimanuka
Nairobi
Food security is about people having economic and physical access to basic food. However, across Africa, there is an outcry over the high prices of foodstuffs, which have soared beyond the reach of the ordinary man.
The food crisis has brought unprecedented levels of anxiety and hunger. Food riots in Egypt, Cameroon, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Madagascar are a grim harbinger of gloomy days ahead if nothing is done to arrest the situation.
What is unfortunate is that the gains that Africa had made in recent years could easily be wiped out by the current food crisis.
Some attribute the current problem to the impact of climate change, which has lowered yields in major grain exporting countries such as Vietnam and Australia. Indeed, it is reported that global grain reserves are at their lowest in a decade.
This state of affairs has limited the supply to the global market. Add higher fuel prices and transport costs to the equation and it all gets complicated.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION in Africa has been shamelessly neglected, making us net importers of foodstuffs from countries such as India and China. The money is not even there, meaning that often it is our development partners who help out.
Out of a population of about 750 million people in Africa, nearly 200 million go hungry daily. For our continent to join the league of net food exporters, we need a paradigm shift in the way we handle agricultural production.
WE NEED TO STIMULATE OUR domestic food production. Now there is talk of an African Green Revolution championed by Kofi Annan, former UN secretary general.
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He argues that we urgently need to implement immediate solutions for today's crisis. It is not too late for us to reverse the current food crisis.
What we need is not rhetoric from policy makers and politicians but a shift in our approach to food production. We can start by borrowing a leaf from the Asian and Latin American Green Revolutions that began more than 50 years ago relying on improved seeds, fertiliser and large scale irrigation to boost farm productivity. Only then can we guarantee the security of our people.
Oscar Kimanuka is a commentator on social and economic issues based in Kigali.
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