This report was as jointly commissioned by Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The report analyses the main trends and drivers of Africa’s food systems, how food systems have responded to these drivers, and what the resulting environmental impacts of these responses have been across the continent. It identifies policy-levers for engagement in the food systems space and
concludes with recommendations on how to move away from an unsustainable “business as usual” trajectory. The analysis was largely based on a review and analysis of publicly available literature and data.
- The report is available for downloading here.
- The report has been released at a side event on COP28, held on 12th December 2023.
I looked at some numbers of agriculture growth and population growth over the last 20 years. Cereal yield growth over the last 20 years has been 1.5% per year. Total production growth of course has been larger. But most of the production growth has been still contributed from land expansion. And that's obviously goes 100% against our focus on preserving and cherishing natural capital. So we are obviously not going in the right direction.
- Cereals are doing better than other crops. And that's in part because CGIAR and partners continue to invest a little bit in agricultural research for cereals.
- Root and tuber crops yields growth only 0.2% per year over 20 years. That's nothing, nothing. Only 4% of production growth contributed from yields. The rest from area expansion. This is obviously not going in the right direction.
- Vegetable yield growth over the last 20 years has been negative. That doesn't mean that vegetables are shrinking. It means that there has been a shift from larger vegetables: something like pumpkins to something smaller like peas. We obviously not doing well at all. Negative yield goes across all vegetable crops in Africa.
And when we compare this with a population growth of 1.9% per year, over the same 20 years. What we are getting is an increased net import dependency of the continent. It continues to grow in a business as usual scenario. By 2050, 54% of what Africans consume will have to be imported. So under a business as usual scenario, things are not going better but worse. And they have been getting a lot worse. We see a very rapid increase in hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all directions, including stunting, obesity. That's maybe a parallel trend. I do not see any difference.
I don't see any change happening. We really need to put all hands on deck. It means obviously agro ecological approaches, industrialization approaches. But first and foremost, we do need investment in agricultural research in Africa. There's no country in the world that I have ever encountered that has been able to get agriculture growth going without investing in agricultural research. We see only one continent in the world to experiment this and that is Africa: trying to develop agricultural crops without investing in agricultural research.
And I just wanted to put those numbers because you specifically asked for the Malabo declaration and CAADP calls. There is an agreement by all African states that 1% of GDP generated in agriculture, - where sometimes 50% of the population is engaged - should be invested in agricultural research. But in fact 44% (almost half) of all investment in agricultural research on the continent is done in only three countries: Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria. The rest is pretty much investing nothing. There has been a decline in the share of agricultural GDP that African governments are investing in research. The decline has been from 0.54%, which is far from the 1% agreement to 0.39% of Agricultural GDP that countries invest on average. 37 of 44 countries with data, obviously, are under 1%. 24% of these countries spent much less than 0.5%.
So I'm not saying that Africa is to be blamed for that. There is a whole system to be blamed. If we want to be serious about making Africa as the food basket for the world - the potential is there - we actually have to invest. We actually are not doing this. It is going in the wrong direction. Hunger is growing as a result, and we'll see also a lot more migration. I wish it wouldn't be the case but that is what the numbers tell us
Extracts
Initiatives such as the African Union’s Common Africa Agro-Parks (CAAPs) aim to attract private investments to establish transboundary mega agro-industrial hubs – but the potential environmental impacts of these investments are yet to be assessed. (page 8)
The proportion of medium- to larger farms is likely to continue to grow and export-oriented production will probably increase – posing increasing environmental threats, but also opportunities for the development, adaptation and scaling out of sustainable practices. (page 8)
Ambitions to achieve national food self-sufficiency have not always considered comparative advantages for food and nature – for example, the extent to which a country’s natural resources are better suited for food grain production, cash crop production or ecotourism. (page 9)
By 2040, the value of food purchased in East and Southern Africa will grow seven-fold. (page 16)
WWF’s Africa’s Food Future Initiative (AFFI) (page 13)
AFFI was created on the notion that Africa food production systems are not sustainable, delivering neither on socioeconomic nor environmental objectives. (...) AFFI aims to establish scalable models of productive and sustainable food systems and support resilient livelihoods via three workstreams: (i) integrated land- and water-use planning and management; (ii) agroecology; and (iii) sustainable and inclusive value chains, with a cross cutting theme on policy enhancement at country and continental level. The policy work of the initiative aims to transform Africa policy processes by ensuring increased investments in food system approaches that are ecologically responsive.
This work builds on the earlier African Ecological Futures (AEF) report, published by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and WWF in 2015, which was designed to guide policy and investment decisions of governments, inter-governmental organizations, development banks, bilateral and multilateral agencies, amongst others. The WWF (2015) report included a review of the main pressures on ecosystems, including pressures from the agri-food system.
The results of this [present] study will provide the basis for engagement with key stakeholders around futures scenarios that will guide Africa on its road towards long-term ecologically sustainable development path.
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