Focus on agricultural reforms and food security

Ending hunger in Southern Africa and building food security lies in the development of smallholder farmers, who could be as efficient as commercial farmers if they were given enough support, according to a Washington-based research institute. Although agriculture accounts for 70 percent of full-time employment in Africa and 33 percent of its total GDP, productivity had stalled, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said in a new report, 'Ending Hunger in Africa: only the small farmer can do it'. "Improving the poor performance of Africa's stagnating agricultural sector, in recent decades one of the worst in the world, is key to solving the problems of hunger and poverty," the report said. Evidence from where African governments had actively supported new investments in agriculture and rural development demonstrated that those trends could be reversed, it noted. The report cited the example of Uganda in the 1990s and a case study of the agriculture boom in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. Smallholder agriculture, the predominant source of livelihoods in Africa, had proved to be at least as efficient as large farms when farmers received similar support services in inputs like seeds, fertiliser and credit. Raising their output would stimulate the rest of the economy. Each 1 percent increase in agricultural productivity had been shown to reduce poverty by 0.6 percent, the institute said. The report by IFPRI, a research group supported by government and civil society groups, comes as Southern Africa faces a food emergency that has threatened 14 million people. The crisis has been triggered by drought, but is the manifestation of deeper problems including poverty, HIV/AIDS, controversial market reforms and the errosion of social services. Public investment in agriculture has been falling for many years. World bank lending for agriculture slumped from about 31 percent of its total lending in 1979-81 to less than 10 percent in 1999-2000. "The optimistic scenario [a 3 to 4 percent increase in crop and livestock yields per year] requires an additional investment in agriculture and rural development ... of US $5 billion per year until 2015. These investment levels depart sharply from recent trends," IFPRI acknowledged. NEW OPPORTUNITIES PRESENT HOPE According to the report, which was prepared in suppport of the US Agency for International Development's Agricultural Initiative to Cut Hunger in Africa, there was hope. Studies have shown that small farmers were willing to change their traditional farming practices, globalisation was opening new markets, and initiatives like the envisaged Southern African Development Community's free trade area presented new possibilities. There were also changes in consumer demand abroad which had increased the market for high quality niche products such as organic foods and year-round supplies of fruit and vegetables, it said. "Historical missteps" in past agricultural development efforts had made African policy makers and donors sceptical about dramatically increasing investments and they needed to be convinced of the viability of the new approaches, the report continued. A growing consensus, it said, was that new approaches must depend less on direct interventions by national governments and more on participatory approaches from civil society and partnerships between stakeholders. Instead of undertaking activities that others might implement, governments should create the environment for the private sector to operate more efficiently, and only provide public services that could not be contracted to others. WOMEN FARMERS NEED SUPPORT A critical element was providing support to women farmers, who supply over 70 percent of agricultural labour in sub-Saharan Africa. They were agricultural innovators and providers of family care and nutrition, yet their needs had long been neglected. Designing gender sensitive agricultural projects was a win-win strategy for reducing hunger in Africa, IFPRI said. African countries' commitment to more liberal trade and marketing policies, and the reform of developed country agricultural protectionism would increase market opportunities even further, the report added. It was "widely recognised" that market reforms so far were not sufficient to generate greater agricultural production and competitiveness in export markets, and if farmers were to benefit from the reforms, they needed to see improved access to markets and lower marketing costs. Given the integrated world markets and the volume of world agricultural trade, Africa should "with the right mix" of domestic market reforms and institutional and infrastructure investments, be able to reclaim larger market shares. ONLY RICH BENEFIT FROM TRADE RULES However, advocacy group Oxfam disagreed with some of the findings. They argue that while trade could play a key role in the fight against poverty, the rules which governed world agricultural trade benefited the rich rather than the poor. "Rich countries spend vast sums of money protecting the interests of their producers, while at the same time forcing poor countries to open their markets to subsidised imports," a new Oxfam report on trade barriers faced by developing countries said. It cited subidies, tarrifs and dumping as some of the main obstacles to growth for African producers and urged developing countries not to sign new agricultural agreements if their vital development needs were not addressed. It said the main flaw of the system which governed world agricultural trade - the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture - was that it allowed rich countries to dump their subsidy-driven surplus on world markets, depressing prices to levels at which local producers could not compete. It undermined developing countries' domestic markets and increased their dependence on imports and denied them export opportunities. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES CAN'T COMPETE AGAINST SUBSIDIES The report pointed out that US subsidies on cotton had stimulated overproduction and led to a slump on the world market, leaving cotton exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa facing losses of US $301 million in export earning for the 2001 to 2002 season. It added that Mozambique's sugar industry, a possible motor for development and an industry considered to be efficient, could not compete on the international market. European processors received a guaranteed price three times that of the market rate and dumped their excess at depressed prices on overseas countries. It said that while rich-country members of the WTO subsidised their own domestic producers, they forced developing countries to open their markets and slash tariffs that would have protected their farmers. REFORMS IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES STALLED Oxfam researcher Max Lawson told IRIN that the reforms in developed country policies towards trade in developing nations had stalled and African countries were still committing themselves to more trade liberalisation, making it difficult to protect key crops. "Their markets are already far too open," he said. Lawson also expressed concern that IPFRI downplayed the role of governments in recovery. "It would be bad to have complete government control, but you can't just exclude them," he said. Alex Mwanakasale, an agriculture specialist at the World Bank in Zambia, told IRIN: "Trade issues are very important for Zambia. Agriculture in developing countries could get a major boost if developed countries reduced subsidies to their agricultural sectors."