With regional trade, Africa can achieve food sufficiency; earn $20b yearly – World Bank

[MrVan]

By Emmanuel Elebeke

A World Bank report says that Africa's farmers can potentially grow enough food to feed the continent and avert future food crises if countries remove cross-border restrictions on trade within the region.

According to the bank, the continent could also generate an extra $20 billion in yearly earnings if African leaders can agree to dismantle trade barriers that block more regional dynamism. The report was released on the eve of an African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade.

With as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger and malnutrition in West Africa's Sahel region, the bank report urges African leaders to improve trade so that food can move more freely between countries and from fertile areas to those where people are suffering food shortages.

The World Bank said in the report that it expects demand for food in Africa to double by the year 2020 as people increasingly leave the countryside and move to the continent's cities.  The report notes that only five per cent of all cereals imported by African countries come from other African countries while huge tracts of fertile land, around 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated and yields remain a fraction of those obtained by farmers elsewhere in the world.

According to the report, Africa can feed itself when it removes all the barriers to regional trade in food staples, noting that rapid urbanization will challenge the ability of farmers to ship their cereals and other foods to consumers when the nearest trade market is just across a national border.

Minister of Trade & Investment, Olusegun Aganga The bank noted that with many African farmers effectively cut off from the high-yield seeds, and the affordable fertilizers and pesticides needed to expand their crop production, the continent has turned to foreign imports to meet its growing needs in staple foods, which must be addressed if the continent must realise self-sufficiency in food production.

A statement credited to the World Bank Vice-President for Africa, Makhtar Diop, said; "Africa has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent's families but this potential is not being realised because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to the market than anywhere else in the world, even when communities in the continent are struggling with too little to eat."

For the World Bank's Lead Economist for Africa, Paul Brenton, the key challenge for the continent is how to create a competitive environment in which governments embrace credible and stable policies that encourage private investors and businesses to boost food production across the region, so that farmers get the capital, the seeds, and the machinery they need to become more efficient, and families get enough good food at the right price.

The report suggests that if the continent's leaders can embrace more dynamic inter-regional trade, Africa's farmers, the majority of whom are women, could potentially meet the continent's rising demand and benefit from a major growth opportunity, adding that it would also create more jobs in services such as distribution, while reducing poverty and cutting back on expensive food imports. Africa's production of staple foods is worth at least $50 billion a year. The report highlighted some of the key indicators as:

Poor roads and high transport costs which blunt progress

The report noted that transport cartels are still common across Africa, and the incentives to invest in modern trucks and logistics are weak. The World Bank report suggests that countries in West Africa in particular could halve their transport costs within 10 years if they adopted policy reforms that spurred more competition within the region.

Unpredictable trade policies, a liability

Other obstacles to greater African trade also identified in food staples include export and import bans, variable import tariffs and quotas, restrictive rules of origin, and price controls. Often devised with little public scrutiny, it said these policies are then poorly communicated to traders and officials. A process that in turn promotes confusion at border crossings, limits greater regional trade, creates uncertain market conditions, and contributes to food price volatility.

Establishing a competitive market will enhance food distribution networks

The report noted that a competitive food market will help poor people most and went further to condemn the current food distribution networks in Africa which according to the report, fail to benefit poor farmers and poor consumers.

The World Bank said its  support for Africa has grown significantly over the past decade, with the concessional lending totaling $1.07 billion in Fiscal year 2012, an increase from previous years, adding that its group lending for agriculture and related sectors in sub-Saharan Africa since 2008, is approximately $5.4 billion.

Vanguard Nigeria

[Folami David]

Africa is a strong place where nothing negative as per food is expected to happen