G8 Must Travel the Shortest Path to African Food Security: Through Africa’s Breadbaskets

When the leaders of the G8 countries met in L’Aquila, Italy, they had the opportunity to make good on their commitment to boost aid for Africa. They did not disappoint. The world’s wealthiest countries committed to raising $20 billion over three years to promote food security and agricultural development in poor countries. The question now moves from whether one should invest in Africa’s farms to how to invest.
The G8 recognized the need to align development with a country’s own plans and priorities, particularly through coordination with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, and it acknowledged the positive contribution of African-led public private partnerships such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). We are delighted that world leaders at the G8 summit recognized the positive contributions AGRA has made. Our work is just beginning and will now focus on scaling up successes with African governments.
Investments in African agriculture must focus on the continent's high-potential breadbasket areas. These areas have relatively good soil, rainfall, and infrastructure—and could rapidly transition from areas of chronic food scarcity to breadbaskets of abundance. Such investments must support the millions of smallholder farmers who grow the majority of Africa’s food; nurture the diversity on their farms; and bring about comprehensive change that strengthens the entire agricultural system.
At the same time, we must boost farm fortunes across wider and more challenging environments, working to minimize disparity in development, and to reward innovation and spread success wherever it is found.
Integrated investments and government policies that provide Africans with finance and markets, good seeds and soils, and supportive trade policies will allow smallholders to transform their small-scale farms into commercially viable and sustainable enterprises. To realize such a transformation, Africa needs support on par with that rendered to agriculture in Asia and South America in the 1960s and 70s, which averted famine and spurred national economic development.
Africa is ready for its own uniquely African Green Revolution, one which rapidly increases the productivity and incomes of smallholder farmers, most of whom are women; protects the environment and helps Africa’s farmers adapt to climate change.
In Africa we have seen successes. There is Tanzania, where the Minister of Agriculture reports that 700,000 smallholder farmers have produced five million tons of the country’s major food crop, maize—despite drought conditions in the northern part of the country. And then there is Malawi, which doubled its spending on agriculture, and transformed itself from a net food importer to a net food exporter, and grew its national economy by seven percent.
The G8 and other international partners must move rapidly to support Africa’s agricultural development. By investing in strategic partnerships, the G8 can greatly accelerate the ability of Africa’s breadbaskets to meet the continent’s food needs, and beyond that, to help ensure global food security in the decades ahead.
To achieve our goal of a food secure and prosperous Africa, AGRA will work with African governments, G-8 and other governments, farmers, and regional and international development partners such as NEPAD's CAADP, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, the World Food Programme, International Fund for Agricultural Development, the US government's Millennium Challenge Corporation and others to bring about an African Green Revolution that will unlock the continent's agricultural potential.
Courtesy:AGRA - Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africahttp://www.agra-alliance.org/