Innovative agricultural activities in Africa

Investments should be increased in Sub-Sharan African Agriculture

An urgent call for more investment in Agriculture

in Sub-Saharan African countries

THE WORLD BANK REPORT & AGRICULTURE ACTION PLAN

(2013 – 2015)

“The future needs an agricultural system that produces about 50 percent more food to feed the world's 9 billion people by 2050; that provides adequate nutrition; that substantially raises the levels and resilience of incomes and employment for most of the world's poor, 75 percent of whom live in rural areas and most of whom rely on agriculture for their livelihoods; that provides environmental services such as absorbing carbon, managing watersheds, and preserving biodiversity; and that uses finite land and water resources more efficiently.”

We need:

·         More and better investment in the sector, with more attention to addressing cross-sectoral linkages between agricultural actions and outcomes for economic growth, livelihoods, the environment, nutrition, and public health.

·         An action plan against the recurrent spikes in global food prices, their lasting impact on poverty and nutrition, and the associated risk of social and political tensions.

“The World Bank Group has made a renewed commitment to agriculture.”

From “2008 World Development Report: Agriculture”:

n  The latest World Development Report calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries and warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized. 

n  The report says the agricultural and rural sectors have suffered from neglect and underinvestment over the past 20 years. While 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture in developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at relatively high levels.

n   “A dynamic ‘agriculture for development’ agenda can benefit the estimated 900 million rural people in the developing world who live on less than $1 a day, most of whom are engaged in agriculture.”” Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank Group President. 

n   Agriculture consumes 85 percent of the world’s utilized water and the sector contributes to deforestation, land degradation, and pollution. The report recommends measures to achieve more sustainable production systems and outlines incentives to protect the environment.

n  The report says in agriculture-based countries—home to 417 million rural people, 170 million of whom live on less than $1 a day—the agricultural sector is essential to overall growth, poverty reduction, and food security. Most of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the sector employs 65 percent of the labor force and generates 32 percent of GDP growth.

n    For Sub-Saharan Africa’s development, the report highlights issues to be urgently confronted: too little public spending on agriculture; donor support for emergency food aid with insufficient attention to income-raising investments; rich-country trade barriers and subsidies for key commodities such as cotton and oilseeds; and the under-recognized potential of millions of women who play a dominant role in farming.