In addition, the majority of Africans live in rural areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of rural poverty in the world, with 60% of the rural population in the region living on less than US $1.25 a day, and almost 90% on less than US $2/day. Due to the fact that so many rural poor depend on agriculture, increasing agriculture production can help reduce poverty and narrow income disparities. In fact, agricultural growth is more pro-poor than growth led by the non-agricultural sector. There is also a considerable amount of evidence that suggests that agricultural investments could accelerate overall economic growth, even in cases where agriculture itself grows at a slower pace than non-agriculture activities, largely due to multiplier effects from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors.
In addition, the majority of Africans live in rural areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of rural poverty in the world, with 60% of the rural population in the region living on less than US $1.25 a day, and almost 90% on less than US $2/day. Due to the fact that so many rural poor depend on agriculture, increasing agriculture production can help reduce poverty and narrow income disparities. In fact, agricultural growth is more pro-poor than growth led by the non-agricultural sector. There is also a considerable amount of evidence that suggests that agricultural investments could accelerate overall economic growth, even in cases where agriculture itself grows at a slower pace than non-agriculture activities, largely due to multiplier effects from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors.Hunger is also still a major concern for Africa, though there is variation across countries. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) – an index that combines child malnutrition with adult malnutrition and the child mortality rate – shows that hunger remains prevalent and at a level characterized as “serious,” especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
As a positive example, Ghana was successful in reducing its GHI score by 59% from 1990 to 2011 by combining investments in agriculture (provision of information and inputs such as pesticides and fertilizer) with improvements in infrastructure, rural development, education, and health.
For these reasons, African countries must begin to prioritize agriculture- led development as a way of promoting overall economic growth. The continent has committed itself to implement the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) developed by the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development. CAADP seeks to foster economic growth by providing a strategic framework for raising agricultural productivity. It targets an average annual growth rate in agriculture of at least 6 percent by 2015. Adoption of sound agriculture and rural development policies is encouraged through four “pillars” or themes.
These include:
Sustainable land and water management
Increased market access
Improved food supply and hunger solutions
Additional agricultural research
To ensure that governments have the resources needed to implement CAADP, AU countries signed the Maputo Declaration in 2003, agreeing to increase budget allocation to the agriculture sector to at least 10 percent of their respective national budgets by 2008. As of 2011, only 8 of 53 countries have met this target.
To ensure that governments have the resources needed to implement CAADP, AU countries signed the Maputo Declaration in 2003, agreeing to increase budget allocation to the agriculture sector to at least 10 percent of their respective national budgets by 2008. As of 2011, only 8 of 53 countries have met this target.In contrast to the increasing agricultural productivity in other regions, most of the increase in agricultural production in Africa has come through agricultural intensification. Cultivated area in Africa has almost doubled in recent years.
In cases where agricultural intensification has been pursued through the addition of commercial inputs, particularly in the context of the Green Revolution, evidence shows that the impacts include yield increases, but these were varied and uneven across regions, countries, individuals and crops.
Additional concerns with agricultural intensification relate to the limited impacts that it had on job creation, as well as environmental problems, which in some cases resulted in declining yields and reduced genetic diversity.