The World Development Bank has called on governments to play a more supportive role in stimulating food production to enhance food security and combat poverty. The bank, which has severely neglected agriculture over the past 20 years, has committed to making US$400 million available for lending for agricultural development in Africa this year, and to double that amount by next year.
Recently delegates from farmers’ organisations all over voiced their support and gratitude at a regional workshop on the report in Stellenbosch. Lourie Bosman, president of Agri SA, said the report and the bank’s new lending policy show countries are again realising the importance of agriculture in global and national economies.
According to the report, global wheat prices rose 181% over the 36 months, to February 2008, while global food prices increased 83% . Food prices are predicted to remain high in 2008 and 2009. Social responsibility Three out of four people in developing countries live in rural areas. Of these, 80% depend on agriculture for their livelihoods agriculture is one of the fastest, cheapest ways of reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving the amount of people suffering from poverty by 2015. Said World Bank spokesperson Hardwick Tchale, “In China, growth originating in agriculture is estimated to be 3,5 times more effective at reducing poverty than growth outside agriculture.
”The report said agriculture has failed to live up to its enriching potential in agriculture-based economies such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, due to government neglect. “Public spending on agriculture only amounted to 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004, compared to 10% in 1980, even though agriculture contributed to almost 30% of GDP in such countries,” said “Public spending in urbanised countries remains at around 14% even though agriculture only contributed to around 12% of these countries’ GDP.”
Political sentiment in most of these economies is biased towards urban development, and farmers lose land and water to urbanites, putting more pressure on soil. Many new tax policies also pressurise farms’ profit margins. report also found that the recurrent food crises tilt public budgets and donor priorities toward direct food provision, rather than investment in growth and achieving food security through rising incomes.
Lack of agricultural policy is another constraint, as African delegates at the workshop acknowledged. Insecure property rights, poor contract enforcement and stringent legal restrictions limit the performance of the land market, creating large inefficiencies in both land and labour reallocation, and reinforce existing inequalities in access to land. s far as water is concerned only 4% of the area under production in sub-Saharan Africa is under irrigation, compared with 39% in South Asia and 29% in East Asia.
The bank admitted that water scarcity is a limiting factor in Africa, but added that there are still many opportunities to enhance productivity by revamping existing schemes and expanding small-scale schemes and water harvesting. Productivity for irrigated lands is more than double that of rain-fed lands. The report said low yield can be addressed by providing more training and education to farmers.
Poor access to research and development is also a major cause for stagnant yield. “While agricultural research and development almost tripled in China and India over the past 20 years, it increased by barely a fifth in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Tchale.
African countries’ unique conditions prevent them benefiting from international technology transfer, and they’re too small to benefit from economies of scale. Better technology for soil, water and livestock management and more sustainable and resilient crop varieties are needed to narrow productivity gaps. Biological and ecological means of combating pests and maintaining soil health would be a great advantage, as many small-scale farmers can’t afford or don’t have access to fertilisers and pesticides.
Product on the move Creating sustainable markets is another challenge. The report proposed reducing transaction costs and risks in food staples markets, and using infrastructural innovations such as market information systems based on rural radio and short messaging service systems, warehouse receipts and market-based risk-management tools. Safety nets should be in place to shield farmers from price volatility. Governments also need to regulate fair and efficient operations in marketing traditional bulk exports, and negotiate access to high-value markets.
The report stated that the high-value markets for domestic consumption are the fastest growing agricultural markets in most developing countries, expanding by up to 7% per year. Domestic retail sales of agricultural products will become more dominant as incomes rise. he report concluded that the political economy has changed in favour of agriculture and rural development, and both rural civil-society organisations and the private sector in agriculture value chains are stronger than in 1982.
Democratisation and the rise of participatory policy making have increased the chances for smallholder farmers and the rural poor to raise their political voice. But this is not enough – farmers need to join forces to have their voices heard in political affairs. |fw
