Agriculture Key to Africa’s Future as it Contains Most of World’s Most Arable Land

Agriculture is Africa’s largest contributor to the total gross domestic product (GDP). Although it holds most of the world’s arable land, it still produces inadequate foods and less value-added products.

Despite employing half of the African population, productivity has been broadly stagnant since the 1980s. The recent efforts to increase investment, are still too slow. These facts are not lost on most African leaders, but as with most development issues, it is not a question of what needs to be done, it is how.

Little attention is paid to capacity and how governments can implement reforms. Throughout history, agriculture has been the foundation for economic transformation. There have been revolutions in the industry all over the world with little bearing development even Europe, North America, South America, and Asia.

Different factors have driven each of these, including technological progress, increased technical skills, changes to regulation and even changing consumption patterns. But in each instance, one factor has always been evident: strong government leadership.

Agriculture is a predominantly private sector activity, including farming, input supply and marketing businesses. However, the success of these private sector institutions, and hence of the agricultural transformation, is determined by national government institutions, investments, and policies.

Favorable developments in these areas bring rapid agricultural growth and all its benefits. Poor government performance brings the reverse. The past norm in African countries has been poor governance with respect to the agricultural transformation.

Poor government performance has been in part associated with past foreign aid efforts at reducing the size and scope of government. Those policies fell harshly on the agriculture sector, which depends heavily on government actions, and thereby inhibited the growth of the small-scale commercial private sector that dominates the sector.

Fortunately, more recently these foreign aid policies appear to have been reversed. However, the quality of governance continues to be poor in many African countries.

Central to accelerating agricultural growth is improving the productivity of the small-scale commercial farmer—above subsistence level, but not urban-oriented like the large-scale farms, and producing approximately 85 percent of agricultural output.

They make their living from farming, want to increase their incomes, are commercial, are not poor, and can bear some risk and put up some capital for growth. They are also the drivers of rural poverty reduction. What actions are needed to put the small-scale commercial farmer on the path to sustained, rapid growth in income and production? How will they be implemented?

Africa is heading in the right direction since countries such as Botswana and Morocco are leading the way, as are many of the nations including Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal. Their governments are putting in place the reforms necessary to unlock agriculture’s potential. These include access to land, new technologies, extension services, market access, access to finance, and private sector investment facilitation.

To deliver these policies, these nations are also investing in building state capacity. But as the continent’s population is projected to double in the coming decades, it is crucial now that Africa’s agricultural transformation shifts into gear.

To do this, leaders need the right kind of support. It must be government-led and must be more than a well-written strategy put down on paper. It must also focus on the hard work of turning the vision into tangible results.

Development assistance will always fall short unless it also strengthens a nation’s capacity to govern. Because what countries need is not really the hard part; how they get there is. This is what I work on in Africa today, because all leaders will tell me: they understand the concept of inclusive growth, but the difficulty is on delivering it.