Most rural areas in Africa heavily rely on agriculture as a key to food security and support for livelihoods, employment and income.Agriculture is mainly practiced by small scale farmers.Often it’s characterized by mixed crop-livestock farming.If your village is like mine am sure this is familiar.
Such practices can be attributed to tenure systems and agricultural policies.Most countries still use policies which were developed by colonial governments.These policies favored the white settlers .African peasant farmers with low technical input , poor market access and lack of capitation were ignored.Consequently, agricultural production in Africa is much lower than other areas of the world
To generate jobs and investment capital, large-scale agricultural enterprises may provide an opportunity for sustainable agricultural expansion.Large Scale Land-Based Investments policies should be packaged to promote technologies that improve production.They should promote irrigation ,mechanization and market access.
However ,large scale land acquisition projects have the risk of displacing communities.Therefore community engagement is important.
African countries suffer a food production deficit and depend on imports and food aid.Africa has been hit hardest by the increasing food price an and food supply bottlenecks.Climate change has been a contributing factor to increased hunger.Countries have been recording highest temperature increase in the last 50 years.
These are indicators of food deficit and food insecurity.There is an urgency in climate change mitigation and adaptation policies in African countries.
Wonderful article. Especially the highlight on food security.