On April 7, 2010 (the day these words are being written) the United Nations sent US$133 million to the country of Niger in an effort to stem the tide of famine, starvation and death in the country. According to a national survey from December, 2009, nearly 60 per cent (or 7.8 million people) in Niger are running out of food after erratic rainfall last year caused crops to fail. This draught is the centre of a wide-spread food crisis in sub-Saharan that could be the worst in at least five years.

What is more shocking? That over 7 million people are starving in Niger alone, or that this is one of the worst food crises in the area in only five years? Most of the world has never experienced hunger and food shortages at this level, never having to bear the burden of having less than the minimal amount of nourishment that will sustain a human. The United Nations estimates that in 2010, more than 1.5 million children under the age of five will not receive enough food. Building on this research, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN say that some 218 million people in Africa, around 30 per cent of the total population, are estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition.

Food crises are triggered by sporadic weather patterns and inadequate agricultural techniques which cause staple food crops to fail. The effects of the low rain levels in October and November culminate in May, June and July, when food supplies run out. Adding to the capricious rain fall is the scarcity of arable land in the Sahel region of West Africa. Oxfam International elaborates on the effects of water and harvest on the famine crisis:
“Irregular rains in 2009 have led to a severe lack of pasture, water and a poor harvest. In Niger, the harvest has fallen by 26 per cent as compared with the previous year, and some areas, especially the Diffa in the east of country and Tillabéry to the west, have had no harvest at all. In Chad, harvests have fallen by 34 per cent. The areas of Hadjer Lamis, Batha, Kanem, Guera regions and eastern Chad are expected to be hit hard, especially from June 2010. Overall, the harvest in the Sahel has decreased by 9 per cent with great disparities between East and West Sahel.”(http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/?p=11635)

Agricultural movement

Prior to the early 1940s, food supply was the major concern for not only Africa, but India and parts of Asia as well.  In 1961, India was on the verge of a major famine when relief agencies allocated just under a million tons of grain to fight it, capping the deaths at 1.5 million instead of what could have been many times more. At the same time, China was experiencing the largest famine of the 20th century, in which 30 million people died.

Despite these cases, these nations are now less exposed to the vicissitudes of weather and infestation to feed their people. Advancements in agriculture technology have made parts of the world less reliant on small farms and capable of producing a more dependable harvest. Yet Africans are still dying in unacceptable numbers and their crops are at pre-20th century standards. According to the FAO, (basic) cereal yields are still around 1.2 tonnes per hectare, compared to an average of some 3 tonnes per hectare in the developing world as a whole. So why have parts of Africa been left in the dust?

In the early 1940s, researchers set out to tackle the issues of food shortage and famine in India and China and to increase industrialised agriculture development. The term ‘industrial agriculture’ includes innovations in machinery, farming methods, genetic technology and techniques for achieving economy of scale in production which are now mainstream in developed nations. The research revolved around developing high-yielding cereal grains, synthetic fertilizers and hybridized seeds and the expansion of irrigation infrastructure. This research culminated in what came to be called the ‘Green Revolution’.

This Green Revolution, or GR, was very successful in India. The International Rice Research Institute developed a variety of the rice that could produce yields ten times greater than that of traditional rice, with considerable less fertiliser and in less land. According to Patrick Barta’s 2007 article ‘Feeding Billions, A Grain at a Time’ (The Wall Street Journal), “By the mid-1990s, rice yields had raised to six tonnes a hectare, or about 2.5 acres, from two tonnes in the 1960s. Other states emulated Punjab’s success and other countries adopted the new seeds. The price of rice dropped to a low of less than $200 a tonne in 2001 from more than $550 a tonne in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, India has been a major net exporter of rice, shipping nearly 4.5 million tonnes last year.”

The success of India’s GR is evident in the phenomenal growth in agricultural output over the past 30 years. In fact, evidence shows that growth in agricultural production has consistently outpaced population growth.

In parts of Asia, this ‘miracle rice’ and the industrial agriculture movement combined to produce more than a 50 per cent increase in harvest yields in two decades. Reform in the agriculture sector took China from struggling with one of the biggest famines in the 1960s to being the world’s largest producer of maize and rice, and was cited as a model by the World Food Programme in its new World Hunger series.

Africa

In stark contrast to the GR success in other parts of the world, Africa has experience a much slower rise in food production. Why is this so? For one, Africa (specifically sub-Saharan) has a more diverse agro-ecology. For example, less than two per cent of the total cultivated land in Africa is under rice cultivation, while root crop based systems are grown on 35 per cent of the land (Michael Johnson et al. ‘The role of intermediate factor markets in Asia’s Green Revolution’). Biotechnology that was successful in India and Asia do not thrive in the same way in Africa.

Then there is economy of scale. Africa faces the challenges of low population density; low density equals a weakened labour force and also drives up the cost of implementing new technologies that are more expensive per capita. Low population densities imply higher costs for constructing and maintaining basic rural infrastructure. According the Johnson et. al, road density—as you would expect, given population density—is low as well, averaging about 63km of road for every 1,000 square kilometres, or about 40 times less than that of India. The vast geography between communities and the (relatively) few people it serves is making the Green Revolution hard to find an axis in Africa.

According to the FAO, African countries spend 4 per cent of their total government spending on agriculture, despite its making up 30–50 per cent of national income, employing nearly 60 per cent of the population and generating about 40 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings.  Another alarming statistic: the Uganda government dedicates 0.5 per cent of its spending on the agriculture, compared to India’s 27 per cent.

It will take a considerable investment in infrastructure by African governments if the Green Revolution is going to take hold in Africa. The billions of dollars being spent every day in aid and nourishment are necessary, but do not address the root of the cause of hunger. Countries such as India illustrate that causes such as poor crops and draughts can—in a matter of decades—be negated by technology and a shift in agricultural practises.  If African governments commit to agricultural growth and combating rural poverty in the same way that Indian governments did in the 1960s, perhaps there could be real progress.

Large amounts of investment are needed for fundamentals such as rural infrastructure and agriculture to overcome the low state of harvest and crops. As well, the use of biotechnology—like that of the “miracle rice”—offers a lot of potential for improving crop production and creating crops that need less rainfall and are less susceptible to infestations. Africa would benefit greatly from a redistribution of population that would increase population density, thereby reducing overall cost of implementation of infrastructure.

Africa’s food security can only be guaranteed through long-term economic growth, not by emergency interventions alone. This shift in policy will entail placing emphasis on renewing infrastructure, building human capabilities, stimulating business development, and increasing participation in the global economy through export of manufactured goods. These areas that constitute what can be called ‘the learning economy’ should be the foundation upon which to base international development partnerships.

Africa is not homogeneous. Countries’ needs vary, and what worked for India and China will not work specifically for Africa, but the ideas such as designer crops and condensing population can be applied to the countries there that need it. The economic and social benefits from doing so would be vast, and more Africans would receive their daily bread.

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