Promoting food security in SubSaharan Africa J. U. Ugwuanyi and Chukwudi Obinne The authors are in the Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication, University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria.

Jonathan Ugwuanyi is a lecturer at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria. His main research area is in environmental pollution with special interest in its effects on human health,animal husbandryand crop yields. He is currently a doctoral student at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. Dr Chukwudi Obinne is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria. His current research interests include the communication and adoption of innovations, indigenous knowledge and extension, women's studies and the impact of extension systems. He is the author of Fundamentals of Agricultural Extension (ABLC Publishers, Enugu) and co-author of Agricultural Extension in Rural Development (Almond Publishers, Makurdi).

Access to adequate food constitutes the most serious problem for most African households today. Low productivity, rapid population growth, food aid and food importation, structural adjustment programmes, illiteracy, environmental degradation, poorly formulated and executed food policies, wars and political instability are among the factors held responsible for food insecurity and food inadequacy in Sub-Saharan Africa. The promotion of food security and improvement of living conditions of the African people should form the core of development programmes in Africa for years to come. Therefore, policy reversals are urgently needed to put Africa on the path of development, and a cooperative regionalism is advocated. Africans both at home and in the diaspora must collectively assume the responsibility for the advancement of African agriculture and economy.

One of the primary objectives, at least in theory, of governments in Africa is the provision of adequate food for their citizens. Many African governments in conjunction with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), both within and outside the continent, have employed several means to realize this lofty objective. Some of the strategies adopted include the provision of agricultural loan facilities, negotiating for food or development aid, and entering into contracts with foreign agricultural and food experts, as well as the establishment of research institutes, faculties and universities of agriculture. These efforts are being made, perhaps in recognition of the fact that agriculture, in addition to being the source of food and raw materials, is the principal occupation of Africans, accounting for about 80% of employment.' It is also the most productive sector, accounting for an average of 32% of Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) and 50-90% of export earnings.' Apart from its pivotal role in African economies, agriculture represents a time-honoured relationship between people and nature, and Outlook on AGRICULTURE Vol 27, No 1, 1998, pp 47-52

remains a treasured component of the people's heritage. The agricultural sector has however fared very poorly since 1970. Food production has increasingly lagged behind population growth. As Iaeger" showed, Africa is the only region in the world where per capita food production is on the decline, at an annual rate of 2%. The situation was captured vividly by Cleaver' when he noted: During the period 1965-80, Sub-Saharan Africa's agricultural value added in constant prices increased at 1.8% per annum on average, compared with an annual increase for the same period of 2.7% in Sub-Saharan population. During 1980-90, the agricultural growth rate declined slightly to 1.4% per annum while population growth expanded to 3.1% per annum.

This ugly situation persists into the 1990s. According to the World Bank," the year 1993 was a difficult one for the countries of the African region as GDP, excluding South Africa, grew by just 1.4%; growth in 1992 had been even smaller. The situation could get worse in the twenty-first century.

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Promoting food security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Already scientists have estimated that in the year 2000, while the population growth rates for USA, Europe and the former USSR will have decreased to 0.85,0.31 and 0.81 % respectively, the growth rates for Africa, Asia and Latin America, will still be 2.96, 2.2 and 2.25% respectively," This implies that the less developed nations of the world, especially Africa, will have about twice as many mouths to feed in just five years' time as they had in 1995. Quoting the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAa) and World Bank, Parikh? noted that millions of people in the developing countries suffer from persistent hunger. Sadly, Africa is today short of food. Almost all Sub-Saharan African countries face starvation, famine and malnutrition. Why? Is Africa unable to feed herself? Why do so many Africans go to bed hungry in a continent that was once self-sufficient? What is the real solution?

Causes of food insecurity Consequent upon the low level of agricultural productivity, Africa is a net importer of food, doubling its food imports in the early 1980s when the food situation assumed crisis proportions. According to Freymond," by 1984 a number of African countries were in the grip of famine. Countries such as Nigeria and Ghana whose food crises resulted from a neglect of the agricultural sector embarked on food importation to ameliorate the situation. During the 1980s too, countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahelian nations whose food shortages resulted from drought benefited massively from food aid. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Djibouti and Chad suffered a decline in food production due to political instability and wars." Adedeji'? observed that food crisis is the most glaring manifestation of the structural disequilibrium which underlies Africa's persistent underdevelopment. The majority of Africa's problems would be overcome if the continent could produce enough food to feed its teeming populace, improve the living conditions of the people and supply enough raw materials to its industries. Unfortunately, by

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adopting the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) many African nations have continued to be lured, by means of loans and aid, into believing that promotion of agricultural exports can precede and supersede the need to guarantee food security in the search for economic development. In the face of the development problematics, Taylor" contended that local peoples have come to the realization that they cannot depend on the State either to meet their basic needs or to further their development objectives. Ironically, these are basic justifications for the existence of the State. The contention here is that policy reversals are required to put Africa on the path of development. The promotion of sustainable food security and the improvement of living conditions should form the core of development programmes in Africa for some years to come. The term 'food security', as used in this paper, means the availability of adequate food, at all times, for every person, in order to ensure active and healthy lives." Africa must resist the lure of conditional loans and aid. At the same time Africa and Africans all over the world must collectively assume the responsibility for the advancement of African agriculture and the African economy. The major characteristic of agriculture in Africa and perhaps the most important cause of low agricultural productivity in the region is that farming is dominated by peasants. These farmers are basically illiterate, poor and poorly motivated, with many of them operating more or less at the subsistence level. High illiteracy limits their access to the scientific, technical, economic and market information necessary for improved performance in a competitive world. Their abject poverty hampers the farmers' investment capacity and subjects them to pitiable conditions of existence. Thus, if the task of feeding Africans is to remain in the hands of these small-scale farmers, they must first be empowered to improve their living conditions and invest in their farm businesses. Adedeji" identified limited use of new technology as a primary cause of low agricultural productivity in Africa. This problem stems mainly

from lack of information and from the poverty of the farmers. The majority of the farmers in Africa lack access to improved seeds, new breeds, fertilizers and other agrochemicals and agricultural machinery. Traditional methods of farming are still prevalent, resulting in a situation whereby the best food crops and livestock from Africa cannot compete with produce from other continents. Besides land, agricultural technology covers the broad range of non-human inputs into farm businesses. Consequently, the cost of production of food is a function of the agricultural technology employed, in the same way as input is directly related to output. Thus, a decrease in the cost of production, which would eventually make farming profitable and food affordable, is needed in African agriculture. To this end, Africans should ensure the effective generation and dissemination of agricultural technology to the grassroots (the small-scale farmers). The environment is also a major handicap in African agriculture. Most of the soils in tropical Africa are not very fertile, and there is a high proportion of lateritic soils which rapidly lose their nutrients when cleared of vegetation." Variability and lack of reliability are visible features of African rainfall, so much so that drought is a recurring problem, even in high rainfall areas. Somerville 15 noted that 16 nations in Africa were affected by drought in 1968-74 and 26 nations in 1982-88. Taylor!" believes that drought has played a major role in causing the crisis that is facing many of Africa's peoples. The generation of suitable agricultural technologies, and of means of mitigating the susceptibility of African agriculture to the vagaries of the weather are primary functions of research. Ironically, despite the number of research centres in Africa (Nigeria alone has 20 agricultural research institutes and more than 20 faculties of agriculture, as well as a large volume of basic research from other countries available for use), agricultural research across the continent has recorded no discernible achievement. In the words of Idachaba," 'after almost a century of organized public agricultural

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Promoting food security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Table 1. Lending to borrowers in Africa (1985-94) in millions of US dollars.

Total lending Agriculture

1985-89

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

2519.0 533.9

3932.9 997.4

3394.2 504.9

3973.6 707.4

2817.3 318.3

2807.9 152.6

Source: Extracted from World Bank Annual Report, 1994; and Freymond, 'Preface', in E. Segle, ed, Developing African Agriculture: New Initiative for Institutional Co-operation, CASIN/SAA/Global 2000, Mexico, 1994.

research, Sub-Saharan Africa cannot boast of a single crop whose production has been revolutionized on a regional or continental scale'. Poor funding has been the bane of agricultural research in Africa and this problem is traceable to the extreme localization of the funding and management of research work in the continent. Whereas African countries share similar agricultural development objectives, problems and environments, they have tended to pursue individual rather than collective research projects, therefore forfeiting the benefits of pooling resources. In their struggle for relevance, African researchers are forced to rely on external sources of funding. In many instances, the researchers are forced to orientate their research activities towards the research interests of funding agencies which may be at variance with African development priorities. Agricultural research loses its usefulness when priorities give way to expediency in this manner. The irresistible tendency to explore and utilize external sources of funding has derailed many African states and agencies from their objectives. While pretending to foster rural development, Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) all over Africa have become mere agencies for collecting agricultural data which assist the issuers of loans in monitoring developments in Africa. The administrative overheads of ADPs and similar agencies foisted on Africans by loan vendors far exceed actual spending on rural developmental and farm inputs. The lure of loans and aid with which the SAP package is baited has shifted the attention of many African nations away from their basic problems of food insecurity and poor living conditions. Irrespective of their huge debt burden and its effects so far, African nations continue to borrow

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(Table 1). The accumulation of debts and importation of food, which contributed in no small measure to the present economic mess, are now being sought as solutions to these problems. African nations, due to oversight and their economic circumstances, have been slow in coming to the aid of their kin in times of food scarcity. The United Nations for instance, has been more responsive to the food crisis in Africa than has the Organization of African Unity (OAU). During the 1984/85 drought for instance, the United Nations organized an awareness conference and made an appeal for $1.5 billion of aid to the affected countries. The USA and the UK, using food aid as a strategy for the disposal of excess farm produce and the stimulation of appetites for their kinds of food, have been more forthcoming in the aid of hungry Africans than African countries themselves. Worse still, African nations are compelled to direct their international trade relations outside the continent to the near neglect of the exchange of food and goods from one part of Africa to another. It is obvious that the undesirable features of agriculture in Africa are legion. The effect of poor transport systems has barely been mentioned. Other factors such as inefficient extension services, poor storage and processing facilities, lack of interest in agriculture among young people and frequent policy changes are also relevant. The features highlighted so far are central to a good appreciation of the choices open to Africa.

Suggested remedies Since the beginning of the food crisis in Africa, analysts have proposed various remedies. They have generally agreed that the peasant families of Africa are more likely to judge the validity of a development strategy

from its results rather than its ideological and methodological soundness. Approaches to the solution of Africa's food insecurity can be put into two categories: the internationalist and the nationalist paradigms. The internationalists advocate policies and programmes which promote linkage of African economies to the world economy. The SAP, whose advocates are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is the most completely tested example of the internationalist strategy.":" SAP is an export-led strategy founded on the belief that Africa will regain its share of world agricultural exports given realistic values for her currencies. This strategy presupposes that export promotion is a critical and topmost priority objective in Africa and that markets exist for African exports. The strategy overlooks the interplay of production costs in the determination of prices and profits. The major reforms introduced by countries which have adopted SAP include currency devaluation, higher interest rates, cuts in government subsidies, scrapping of commodity boards (withdrawal of governmental regulation of agricultural export prices) and trade liberalization. According to Adedeji," whatever the original expectations of SAP might have been when it was introduced into Africa about a decade ago, the reality on the ground is that it has not led to the alleviation of poverty; neither has it appreciably increased agricultural export earnings. Currency devaluation and high interest rates have frustrated all efforts to increase production and achieve selfsufficiency. Trade liberalization has exacerbated food dumping and Africa's food dependency syndrome. The capacity of Africa to substitute local products for imported goods has proved to be weak. In countries like Benin, Nigeria and Ghana where SAP has been implemented, the enduring constraints on agricultural development remain: poor marketing and processing systems; outdated production techniques (reliance on peasant technologies); insufficient investment in farming or low investment capacity; ineffective agricultural extension services; and soil fertility problems. Others are adverse and unpredictable climatic conditions;

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Promoting food security in Sub-Saharan Africa

poor administration and funding of research; poor management of natural resources; low competitiveness of African farm produce and lack of interest in farming among young people. Many analysts agree that the alleviation of poverty and hunger will not follow from the market reforms of the World Bank/IMF SAP unless it is backed up by increased investment in terms of improved seeds, new breeds, and the increased use of agrochemicals and farm ·machines. On the failure of SAP, Olusegun Obasanjo" observed that Africans must determine their agenda, which must be consistent, stable and based on their needs and outlook, and must not reflect the desires and wishes of donors. The World Bank and IMF are being accused of having a hidden agenda besides their expressed interest in African development. Like Chile in the 1970s, Africa and Africans need to realize that adopting an alien strategy like SAP can only lead to systematic exclusion of millions from the possibility of progress, well-being and social liberation." When the plans to set up the World Bank and the IMF were conceived at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA in 1944, 95% of African countries were still under the yoke of colonial rule. It is foolhardy to expect that these organs will sacrifice the agenda of their founders in the interests of Africans. The solution therefore, lies in self-determined and independent development, which the nationalist paradigm represents. The nationalists advocate selfreliance and African collectivism. In the context of current terminologies, a more appropriate term for the nationalist paradigm is regional cooperation or cooperative regionalism. At one extreme of this paradigm is the strategy of development from within, which is community-centred. At the other extreme is the strategy that is Africa-centred with individual communities and nations making contributions as best they can. It is this latter strategy that is advocated here. Regional cooperation is a familiar strategy in Africa. The strategy underlies the formation of the following bodies in Africa:

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• The Organization of African Unity (OAU) • Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) • West African Monetary Union • Central African Customs and Economic Union • Permanent Inter-State Committee to Combat Drought in Sahel (CILSS) • Council of the Entente (CE) • Afro-Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM) • West African Rice Development Association (WARDA) • Senegal River Basin Developmental Authority (OMVS) • Lake Chad Basic Commission (LCBC) These and many more regional and subregional organizations existing in Africa have achieved some successes, making allowances for the usual defaulters on statutory contributions among participating nations. The developed world, Europe in particular, has taken a serious interest in regional cooperation in recent times. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is being progressively adopted in Europe and North America. The regional cooperation strategy is not entirely different from the internationalist paradigm. It can be perceived as a pilot testing of the policies of internationalism within Africa, where participating countries have similar problems and aspirations. It should correspond to the Cross-Border Initiative (CBI) cosponsored by the World Bank, IMF, the European Commission of the European Union and the African Development Bank (ADB), but restricted to Africa. The potential gains of regional cooperation are several. By combining scarce resources, efficiency is promoted and duplication of efforts avoided; each member state therefore enjoys greater economic returns than it otherwise would; member nations are enabled to increase the number of products they can export to other countries. Other gains include the strengthening of national currencies so that strong local currencies could emerge; and the breaking of existing disadvantageous trade links with a few industrialized nations. Finally, regional cooperation

would reduce the dependency of Africa on industrialized nations, by diverting trade. African nations would be less vulnerable to external influences, and the development tension in Africa resulting from the presence of a few industrialized nations, would abate. Consequently, development plans and actions would be more coordinated and the development of local industries stimulated. Hubbard et aP3 identified four levels and types of regional cooperation, including food production, food trade, food consumption and food policy management. The details are shown in Table 2. Africa needs a common agricultural policy which should focus on the objectives of promoting food security and improving living conditions in rural areas. The European Commission (EC) already has such a policy. The UK has a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) whose agricultural support programme has stimulated further intensification of production. By formulating regional and sub-regional policies, the tendency of African states to abandon well-conceived policies would be effectively checked. Associated with the objective of promoting food security in Africa is the aim of rapidly eliminating food imports. Regional and sub-regional integration of food markets is a vital strategy for minimizing food imports into Africa, just as the OAU envisaged in its Lagos Plan of Action. It should be possible for instance, for grain surpluses in Nigeria to be sold in Senegal and for oil mills in Nigeria to receive oil seeds as raw materials from neighbouring countries. Africa needs to engender a free and easy flow of food between African nations. This would require the removal of duties and bureaucratic hindrances as well as the provision of efficient road and rail networks in Africa. The OAU, ADB, World Bank and IMF should be able to play leading roles in these areas. Food importation could also be minimized by improving the quality of food and livestock produced in the continent. Competitiveness in the international export market dictates the need for quality products. Strengthening the agricultural research capacity of Africa is essential

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Promoting food security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Table 2. Levels of regional cooperation in food security.

(1) (2) (3) Information and research Institutional and infrastructural strengthening Common policy and collective action Food production

Food security data, technology Food trade Prices, markets, finance for trade, improving markets for traditional foods Food consumption Food security data Food policy management

Agrometeorological infrastructure, agricultural research, extension infrastructure Transport, storage and handling facilities

Vulnerable groups programmes, drought preparedness, income generation Improved analytical techniques

Taxes, subsidies Storage, removal of barriers, phytosanitary standards, joint promotion

Food aid, relief supplies

Source: M. Hubbard et al, 'Regional food security strategies: the case of IGADD in the Horn of Africa', Food Policy, Vol 17, 1992, P 18.

to catalyse the improvements sought. The funding and capacity of agricultural research centres could be greatly improved through multinational collaborations. Regional, sub-regional and multinational research institutes should be established to cater for the common research needs of African countries. Research problems peculiar to member nations could then be handled in colleges, faculties and universities of agriculture, as commissioned research projects. Experts, including Parikh." have suggested sustained efforts in extension to persuade farmers that a particular new crop variety is indeed better, as well as providing other support in the form of credit and input supply. Since food crisis is likely to remain a feature of African food production for some time to come, an Agricultural Aid Commission under the GAD should ensure a speedy response by African countries to countries under food stress. The Commission should ensure timely supply of food as well as farm inputs to nations hit by drought. As for nations at war, the GAD needs to work out a mechanism for intervening at the right time in defence of people's rights to choose their governments. Political opportunism will continue to rob millions of Africans of peace until the GAD decisively accepts its role as an arbiter and defender of the people. It must also be said that individual countries have their roles to play. In particular, African countries must strive for a reduction of their administrative overheads so that agricultural budgets and loans can be

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spent mainly on directly supporting farmers and creating favourable conditions for farming. There should be a major reduction in investment on low-priority projects and a full focus of investment on higher priority areas. Where these conditions can be guaranteed, adequate budgetary allocation, reflecting the importance of agriculture to the economy, would produce quick results subject to good management and accountability. Improving the farming and living circumstances of farmers is primarily a responsibility of individual nations. Ministries of agriculture in each country should give priority attention to farmer education, rural infrastructure development, credit and subsidy creation, provision of access to land, supply of modern farm inputs, food marketing and distribution, development of farmers' groups and enhancement of youth and women's participation in agriculture. Specific ways of meeting these needs should be determined by each country. An essential ingredient in the success of any cooperative effort is the commitment of individual members. The success of the collective regional strategy hinges on the commitment of individual nations towards cooperative projects, more especially in meeting their agreed and statutory contributions. Therefore, when conceiving cooperative agricultural development projects, a mechanism for discouraging default should be put in place.

Conclusion It is beyond contention that meeting

local food needs, improving living conditions and guaranteeing an adequate supply of raw materials to agro-based industries is more important than agricultural export promotion. It is even likely that if access to the basic necessities of life could be assured over a long period, Africans and Africa would become more secure and amenable to development. Therefore, the industralized nations should channel their aid and loan packages towards the support of policies and programmes designed to guarantee African farmers' access to the basic necessities of life and promote food security in the region. African leaders also need to keep their priorities right and resist being swayed off track.

Noles and references lW.K. Jaeger, The Effect of Economic Policies on African Agriculture, World Bank Discussion Paper No 147, The World Bank, Washington, DC, 1992. 2K.K. Cleaver, A Strategy to Develop Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa and a Focus for the World Bank, World Bank Technical Paper No 203, The World Bank, Washington, DC, 1993.

3Jaeger, op cit, Ref 1. 4Cleaver, op cit, Ref 2. sWorld Bank Annual Report, The World Bank, Washington, DC, 1994. 'C.W. Heinke, 'Population and economic growth', in J.G. Henry and G.W. Heinke, eds, Environmental Science and Engineering, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989, p 18. 7J