Last year's global food crisis made two facts startlingly apparent: first, the desperate need for Africa's agricultural sector to fulfil its huge potential, in order to become a breadbasket for the world. And second, quite how far from reality this ambition was. While the rest of the world struggled with the high cost of staple foods, in Africa many millions already living a hand-to-mouth existence starved.
As things stand, Africa cannot feed itself, let alone the rest of the world. Famine is an all-too-common occurrence throughout the continent and one-third of the population lives with chronic hunger. As the developing countries of Asia went through a post-war green revolution, modernising their food production techniques and transforming their infrastructure, Africa stood still. In the past four decades, food production in sub-Saharan Africa has actually declined, failing completely to keep up with population growth. This is despite agriculture being the largest economic sector on the continent. According to figures from emerging markets specialist Standard Chartered, the sector employs three-quarters of Africa's inhabitants and generates 20% of total gross domestic product. Too often, African governments have poured investment into more immediately profitable sectors such as mining, while neglecting their farmers. As a result, the agricultural sector has a chronically low level of mechanisation, limited access to seeds and fertiliser, poor soil quality due to backward farming techniques, and crucially, almost non-existent access to finance and credit.
