Africa imports $33 billion worth of good annually. The continent also gets about $3 billion food aid annually to bridge the gap between domestic food supply and demand, the Secretary General, UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has said.

Mr. Abdoulie Janneh made the remarks yesterday in Abuja at the closing session of the High Level Conference on the Development of Agribusiness and Agro-industry in Africa (HLCD-3A).

He said the overall performance of the food and agriculture system of the continent has been far below its potential and far short from expectations.

FAO data show that the continent has 265 million undernourished people with almost one out of every three people going to bed daily hungry. "The situation is no better at global level, where the share of Africa in world agricultural trade has decline from 15 percent in the 1960s to 5.4 percent in the 1980s and 3.2 percent in 2006.Moreover, intra-African trade represents barely 10 percent of Africa's total agricultural trade," he said.

Less than 4 percent of African total arable land is irrigated compared to 33 percent in Asia and the Pacific and 29 percent in the Middle East.