docblaircom04

Reducing Hunger in Africa (MDGS)

Views from farmers’ organisations in Africa, members of IFAP

IFAP Contribution to Blair Commission for Africa

27 september 2004

Problem 1 : Neglect of agriculture by the public sector

Around the world, very few economies have achieved broad based economic growth without agricultural and rural growth preceding or at least accompanying it. The current levels of poverty and hunger in developing countries could therefore to a large extent be attributed to an almost total neglect of the Agricultural sector and subsequently rural development.

FAO estimates that some 800 million people in developing countries suffer from under-nourishment, the highest incidence being in Sub-Sahara Africa with 33% of the people being undernourished.

Good intentions; few results on the ground

The international community and governments both in developed and developing countries have pledged to change this scenario through the adoption of the millennium development goals (MDGs), at least to reduce by half the number of the hungry by the year 2015. Since their adoption four years ago, some progress has been noted through policy declarations, new initiatives like the NEPAD adopted by the African heads of states, Maputo declaration pledging at least 10% of the national budgets to agricultural sector and renewed debate and interest in Agricultural development has come to the table of many international institutions. However, this has had little or no impact on the ground where the poor live, neither has there been any concrete action.

Most of African countries depend on Agriculture for their Economic growth. About 80% of the population live on rural areas and depend directly or indirectly on Agriculture for their livelihoods. About 60% are farmers especially small-holder producers.

In spite of the good intentions of the Donors, development agencies and governments farmers in developing countries continue to slip further into poverty rather than getting out of it.

The private sector is not filling the vacuum left by government withdrawal from agriculture

The World Bank structural adjustment programmes of the 1990s, market liberalisation and withdrawal of government support to agriculture in developing countries, resulted in withdrawal of Agricultural extension services and diminished support to Agricultural research. These are two Keys to farming in African countries where most farmers are small-holders and not trained agronomists and depend on these services for a livelihood.

The marketing boards in developing countries up to this point had provided the small holder farmers with a buyer of last resort making sure they could compete with the private sector where the farmer was free to trade but when this was not possible the farmers had the option of the marketing boards as a safety-net.

The economies of the free market demanded that the private sector take up a more prominent role in marketing. This meant several challenges for the small-holder farmer:

The private sector was not ready to assume this role as the transaction costs of dealing with small-holder farmers are too high.
The market was able to get cheaper products from the world market and therefore farmers lacked access to the domestic market.
The farmers’ organisations in Africa are relatively weak and were not prepared to deal with the dynamism of negotiating with the private sector.
This meant many farmers got out of farming and only slipped deeper into poverty and destitution as there are not enough opportunities for diversification.

Problem 2: Lack of investment in agriculture

The second problem was the lack of financial support to the agricultural sector, donors reduced their support to the agricultural extension as well the agricultural research. The overseas development aid to agriculture has consistently dropped from the 1980s.

National governments continued to reduce their allocation to agriculture and rural development. The situation is most severe in Sub-Sahara Africa, where there has been perception that past public spending on agriculture has had limited impact.

The African governments have recently through the NEPAD pledged to increase their investment to Agriculture at least to 10% of their budged but this has not happened.

This means no credit to farmers and no form of support in production skills and this has caused great reductions in yield and therefore increasing production costs making it impossible to compete in a free market.

Recommendations

The farmers of Africa are calling for some concrete action to continue to have a livelihood:

More Financial support to the rural areas in areas of education, health, water, information and infrastructure.
Deliberate efforts by national governments to invest in agriculture, and in having credit available for the farmers’ as a prerequisite to production.
As most of farming in Africa is weather dependent, investments in small-irrigation projects should be high priority.
The governments should still play a role in assisting farmers as they are not yet able to compete in a completely open market, this also calls for sound national food policies to support the Agricultural sector.
These farmers are more vulnerable to any risk of failed market or weather as their assets are very few and cannot be used as security in times of hardship. The development partners and governments should set up safety nets and put up risk mitigating factors.
One way to have risk averted is to make investments in the agricultural sector as this will result in support industries in the rural areas giving the rural people and the small-holder farmers chances to diversify and have more productive use of labour which is the resource readily available.
There is urgent need for the development partners to honour their pledge of increasing financial assistance to the agricultural sector.
Developing Small and medium micro-enterprises (SMEs) in the rural areas is an important offshoot to Agricultural growth and this would give the small-holder farmers alternatives in times of poor production, and redundant labour.

Problem 3: Lack of market opportunities

Small farmers need market opportunities, and they need the means to take advantage of such opportunities. They cannot compete in the market against business local cartels or with subsidised products. Efforts are needed to help farmers organise themselves in the market, through farmer cooperatives and marketing schemes. Assistance is also needed in terms of meeting international food safety and traceability standards.