Abuja — The Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Mr. Abdoulie Janneh yesterday said food imports from the developed world into the African continent annually gulps $33 billion.

This, he said, is besides the $3bn which comes in the form of aid from international donor agencies. He said the continent has had to resort to food import to bridge the gap between domestic food supply and demand which is mainly fueled by urban demand for processed food.

"Overall, the performance of the food and agriculture system of the continent has been far below its potential and far short from expectation. Despite, proven comparative advantage, Africa relies heavily and increasingly on food imports, standing now at about $33billion," Janneh said at the three Day High Level Conference on the Development of Africa Agrobusiness and Agro-industries Development Initiative (HLCD-3ADI)

He said that achieving a paradigm shift in African agricultural development business requires a new vision, top level political commitment and leadership, as well as renewed efforts of both national and international policy makers.

He noted that several key features of the agricultural sector in most African countries present significant challenges, saying overall, the sector remains predominantly subsistence-oriented and severely under capitalized.

He pointed out that Africa's agriculture is "thirsty" as less than four percent of the total arable land is irrigated, compared to 33 percent in Asia and the Pacific and 29 percent in the Middle East.

Also, he said African agriculture is "hungry" as it receives only 14.6kg of fertilizer per hectare, against 114.3kg per hectare for all developing countries.

As a result, he said the productivity of African agriculture lags significantly behind that of other developing countries.

At the global level he said the situation is not any better as the share of Africa in world agricultural trade has declined from 15 percent in the 1960's to 5.4 percent in the 1980's and down to 3.2 percent in 2006.

He expressed disappointment that intra- African trade represents barely 10 percent of total agricultural trade.

He said Africa's small share in both regional and global agricultural trade is strongly associated with the fact that world agricultural trade is no longer dominated by bulk commodities.