A panel of experts explains what needs to be done to help Africa's agricultural sector develop.
The story of agriculture in Africa today is largely one of massive but untapped potential. Agriculture can be a real driver of economic growth and poverty reduction.
It currently accounts for around one third of Africa's GDP and almost 60% of its export earnings. Meanwhile, as much as 80% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods.
However, at the same time, more than half the world's unused fertile land is in Africa, agricultural growth rates over the past three decades have been meagre, African governments have not spent enough on agriculture to rectify infrastructural shortcomings, and over 200 million people on the continent are chronically hungry.
To shed more light on the subject, Think Africa Press asked a range of experts to focus in on one particular issue in answer to the question: "What needs to be done to help African agriculture develop?"
Bernd Mueller, research officer for the Fair Trade, Employment and Poverty Reduction project, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Whenever the topics of rural development and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa are discussed, time and again terms like 'smallholders', 'family farms', or 'subsistence agriculture' are used to describe and define rural communities.
Not surprisingly, almost agricultural policies involve a narrow range of support tools to such smallholder farmers, be it in the form of irrigation systems, subsidised inputs, improved market access or agricultural extension services.
Regrettably, this limited approach fails to acknowledge two central truths about most, if not all, rural farming communities in Africa.
The first is that farmers are heavily differentiated - far beyond crude dichotomies of subsistence vs. commercial farmers. African villages display intricate and complex socio-economic hierarchies, and failing to acknowledge this has far-reaching effects on service delivery.
The often-lamented appropriation of subsidised inputs by local elites is only one of many adverse outcomes.
The second, more important truth is that rural labour markets are a ubiquitous, yet mostly unacknowledged phenomenon. From a growing number of detailed surveys, we know that the poorest rural people typically rely on highly insecure, casual wage incomes for their and their families' survival.
It is not the 'smallholders' who are at the bottom of local hierarchies. It is the large number of women and men who dig, weed, and harvest on larger farmers' plots for petty wages of usually less than $1 a day.
They find themselves in a constant struggle to secure the next small job as a source for income, often with months out of work due to cycles of seasonality and lack of sustained labour demand.
They constitute the majority of labour supply in the agricultural sector, and at the same time they are the people who are most vulnerable and in need of support.
Therefore instead of focussing exclusively on a less and less important economic model - smallholder farming - we need to start creating reliable and decent wage employment for rural Africans by promoting highly productive and labour-intensive agriculture on medium- to large-scale farms.
This will be crucial for strengthening African agriculture and supporting the rural poor.
Stephen Muchiri, CEO of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF)
Land is a crucial factor of agricultural production. In order to achieve sustainable economic growth, land tenure and access must be dealt with equitably and sustainably. In summary, the following need to be done:
1) Secure land tenure for small-holders: Most African countries do not have a system of recording or titling of land.
Without land titles, or other forms of legal recognition of ownership, small-holder farmers do not have security over the land they occupy.
Rwanda has made significant progress in this area. Since 2004, the government has embarked on a comprehensive Land Tenure Reform Program addressing all aspects of land reform including tenure, women's access, registration and public awareness.
By May 2012, 99% of the estimated 10.5 million land parcels in the country had been demarcated.
2) Incentivise small-holder access to land: One of the ways of strengthening small-holder agriculture is through facilitating collective action through farmer groups, associations and co-operatives.
Land incentives need to be provided to successful farmer organisations and co-operatives to support the growth of their businesses.
These incentives could be modelled around the benefits provided to foreign investors through some of the national investment codes.
Article 31 of the Co-operative Proclamation (law) of Ethiopia (1998) permits registered co-operative societies to acquire land, as a form of government assistance.
One of EAFF's members in Ethiopia, the Oromia Coffee Farmers' Co-operative Union, is in the advanced stages of acquiring 5,000 hectares of land in collaboration with the government, to expand their business.
At the regional level, EAFF is pushing for regional legislation for co-operatives in the East African Community.
3) Formulate legally-enforceable guidelines for large-scale agricultural investments: The International Land Coalition estimates that over the past 15 years, there have been 260 large-scale land purchases in Eastern Africa by foreign entities.
These purchases amount to 8.8 million hectares of land, equivalent to the combined area of Burundi, Djibouti and Rwanda.
Of these, 76% are land deals in the agricultural sector. There is an urgent need to effect legally-enforceable guidelines that ensure large-scale land investments provide economically and environmentally sustainable benefits to small-holders.
The horticulture sector in Kenya provides an example of such a model; it does not jeopardise the land holdings of small farmers, but rather facilitates a successful out-grower scheme that ensures mutual benefits for small farmers and the large horticulture exporter.
National and local governments must enact/amend investment legislation to facilitate similar models.
With support from the International Land Coalition, EAFF has commissioned studies in this area, and sponsored a visit of farmer leaders from Eastern Africa to central Kenya, where the horticulture model is successful. In the coming year, EAFF will formulate and propose guidelines to the East African Legislative Assembly.
Laura Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
The issue of large tracts of land being leased to foreign companies and countries for long periods and at rock-bottom prices, is attracting a good deal of attention and criticism lately.
From the perspective of the foreign investors, these leases make good economic sense: they provide a more or less guaranteed source of food (or biofuel) for many years to come.
For countries that have more cash than arable land, such investments are important to safeguard the future food security of their own populations.
For the leasing country, however, such arrangements may be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the country benefits from the agricultural and infrastructural development that the foreign company or country brings to the plot and sometimes to the roads and transport infrastructure around it.
On the other hand, that land becomes unavailable to the leasing country for its own production, people must be relocated out of the farms, and in very few cases are provisions made for any benefit from the scheme to be passed on to the community affected.
Debates about exactly how much land is being leased and what the conditions of the lease agreements are suffer from lack of reliable information.
This provides ammunition for both sides of the debate - human rights groups and other NGOs (as well as some citizens groups) protest that land is being given away or 'grabbed' without regard for - and at great cost to - local livelihoods and, in some cases, possibly also endangering national food security.
Governments claim that they are making sound decisions that will bring foreign currency and stimulate investment. Both arguments contain some truth.
However, given what is known about the substance of contracts and investments made, it seems fairly clear that in most cases local residents are net losers.
Increasing the cost of leases by even a small margin could provide funds for the compensation of local people forced to resettle; clauses in agreements that ensure that locals have a right to a fair wage as workers on the schemes or a right to a portion of the production at a reasonable price could also help to promote equity with regard to leases. So far these ideas have not made it into the debates.
Boaz Blackie Keizire, Senior Agricultural Advisor, African Union Commission
Africa's population is growing rapidly while agricultural growth lags well behind. Recent reports suggest one in four Africans lacks the adequate food for a healthy and active life, partly due to factors such as climate change and high food prices.
There are many challenges in agriculture - such as climate change and variability, volatile prices, soil degradation etc. - but ultimately what Africa is lacking is not resources or expertise.
In fact, the current financial resources available for agriculture could be used to drive a huge agricultural transformation if utilised properly.
What Africa is lacking is a combination of rigorous policy packages and good institutions able to assess and respond in the delivery of services.
Much of Africa currently does not have the necessary systems that can guarantee private sector investment, and monitor, report, and ensure accountability.
The main focus of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) therefore has been to help countries redefine their agricultural strategies into something more evidence-based, stakeholder-driven and comprehensive.
It is crucial to first strengthen capacities and systems for delivery of public sector services in order to attract other key actors.
There must also be systems in place for cooperation, delivery and monitoring so that the most appropriate technologies can be developed and delivered to farmers.
CAADP's focus on systems does not mean other efforts are not also helpful. But experience has shown that without getting the policies, strategies, and systems right, other efforts may go to waste. And these institutional changes require strong leadership.
Heads of state must steer and champion a strong vision for agricultural revolution. Linked to this is the required leadership to install systems of planning, implementation, and tracking progress.
This must be done under the four principles of trust, openness, fairness and accountability. Most fundamental of all, leaders must also preside over the development of homegrown capacities for everything including research, extension, market development and infrastructure.
Capacities must be developed, retained and enhanced. Without these, success will remain but a dream.
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Imogen Bellwood-Howard, researcher on the UrbanFoodPlus Project at the University of Gottingen
A push towards commercialisation is currently the dominant agricultural policy theme across most of the continent, and the focus on markets has led to calls for valid measures such as lifting intraregional trade barriers for agricultural commodities.
However, sustainable input supply is equally fundamental to long-term prosperity and food security.
Although trade measures help by lowering fertiliser and agrochemical costs, especially for inland countries, supporting development of local natural resources is the other essential route to sustainable input provision.
This is integral to commercial but also to subsistence agriculture, which will continue to enhance agricultural resilience for smallholders for some time. And they, after all, will comprise the bulk of producers well into the future.
Effective soil management is one of the best ways to approach nutrient and water supply. Governments should continue to strengthen fertiliser supply mechanisms, but should do so by developing transport infrastructure and African rock phosphate markets to reduce real fertiliser prices rather than by subsidising them.
More importantly, fertiliser should be delivered alongside training on Integrated Soil Fertility Management: the current soil management paradigm that encourages use of organic alongside inorganic fertilisers.
Organic amendments improve soil structure and thereby nutrient and water retention capacity, reducing the need for expensive external agrochemicals and irrigation.
The most useful focus for subsidies would therefore be to reduce the cost of organic fertiliser production and distribution tools, such as private transport stock.
Following in European footsteps, scientists at Ghana's KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) have mooted the idea of municipal organic fertiliser production facilities.
Converting urban biodegradable waste to compost and soil conditioner could provide employment and contribute solutions to urban waste management issues.
With short transportation distances and thus low costs, the products will be important for the growing pool of urban and peri-urban crop producers.
In an urbanising Africa, they will be increasingly important to both food security and income generation.
James Wan is the Senior Editor for Think Africa Press. He is a British-born Mauritian and has particular interests in China-Africa relations, human rights and social theory.
You can contact him at james.wan@thinkafricapress.com and follow him on Twitter @jamesjwan.
