Morgen Makombo Sikwila
Food security is a fundamental human right that ensures individuals have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food, to lead active and healthy lives.
Unfortunately, many regions around the world, including Africa, face persistent challenges in achieving food security. By understanding these issues and taking collective action, we can make a positive impact and help alleviate food insecurity in Africa.
Chronic food insecurity occurs when people are unable to meet their minimum food requirements over the long term, as a result of overwhelming poverty. Despite the continent’s vast natural resources, a significant portion of its population lacks consistent access to nutritious food. Several factors contribute to this crisis, including environmental challenges, economic and political instability, and social inequalities. These interconnected issues create a complex web of challenges that hinder progress toward achieving food security in Africa.
Drought and conflict are the main factors that have aggravated the problem of food production, distribution, and access in Africa. Africa is considered to have chronic food insecurity due to interconnected factors.
One of the primary reasons for Africa’s enduring food insecurity is climate change and the environmental challenges associated with climate change. These challenges include droughts, erratic rainfall patterns, desertification, soil degradation, and pests and diseases. The continent is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate due to its reliance on rain-fed agriculture, limited access to modern agricultural technologies, and inadequate infrastructure. Rising temperatures, irregular rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events pose significant challenges to crop yields, livestock productivity, and overall food production. Climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and places additional strain on already fragile food systems in Africa.
Many African countries lack adequate infrastructure, including irrigation systems, storage facilities, and transportation networks. This limits farmers’ ability to efficiently produce, store, and transport their crops, resulting in post-harvest losses and reduced access to markets. Insufficient access to agricultural inputs, such as quality seeds, fertilizers, and modern farming technologies, further deepens the problem.
Economic instability, including high levels of poverty and unemployment, contributes to food insecurity. Limited economic opportunities and inadequate social safety nets make it challenging for individuals and communities to access sufficient food. Political instability, conflicts, and displacement disrupt agricultural activities and create further barriers to food security.
Africa has a rapidly growing population, leading to increased pressure on food resources. Inequality in access to resources, education, and healthcare perpetuates food insecurity in Africa. Vulnerable groups, such as women, children, people living with disabilities and marginalised communities, often bear the brunt of the crisis. Limited access to education and healthcare also perpetuates a cycle of poverty and malnutrition. Urbanisation further strains food systems as more people migrate to cities, creating challenges in ensuring access to nutritious food for urban populations.
The costs associated with Africa’s food insecurity crisis extend beyond the immediate concerns of hunger and malnutrition. Socioeconomic consequences, such as decreased productivity, increased poverty rates, and health issues, affect individuals and communities on a broader scale. Food insecurity perpetuates a cycle of poverty, as malnourished individuals struggle to break free from the constraints of low productivity and limited economic opportunities. Furthermore, the crisis places a burden on governments and aid organisations, diverting resources that could be utilised for development and other essential services.
The connection between food insecurity and poverty is important. Food production is significant because, for the majority of the poor population in the continent, agriculture is the main source of livelihood. Furthermore, 76% of the population is classed as agricultural, meaning that only when poverty can be alleviated or diminished that the level of food insecurity may reduce. Despite the long-lasting crisis and the fact there is not one solution to address the matter, several strategies show promise in tackling the issue.
African suffers from chronic dry and unpredictable climates, often poor-quality soils, challenging landscapes and vast distances. In response to these challenges, the scientific and technical expertise that Australia has built for long-term agricultural productivity and trade has been and continues to be promoted in Africa. Africa has not aided in building resilience and meet the immediate needs of vulnerable people during the humanitarian crises.
Developing and investing in rural infrastructure is crucial for improving agricultural productivity and access to markets. This includes building irrigation systems, storage facilities, roads, and transportation networks, which can help farmers overcome logistical challenges and enable them to bring their produce to market more efficiently.
Africa’s food systems are at a crossroad. Several challenges and exogenous shocks— including extreme weather events and climate change, recurrent outbreaks of pests and diseases, limited availability and adoption of yield-increasing technologies—have exposed fragilities of Africa’s food systems, undermining the ability to meet the food demand of a burgeoning population. Africa’s food systems must become more resilient and guarantee access to healthy and affordable diets for all. Agriculture transformation is possible in input and output market systems, and that it can be scaled across the continent.
More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have disrupted the supply chain for agricultural inputs, fuel, and food. The state of food security in the continent is worsening, with over 20 percent of the continent’s population undernourished. Africa bears the heaviest burden of malnutrition, while the African Union’s Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Biennial Review report (2019-2021) further reveals that Africa is not on track to meet its goal of ending hunger by 2025. In 2022, over 20 million people and at least 10 million children faced severe food shortage in Africa due to crop failure and four consecutive dry seasons. Millions of livestock in a year due were lost due to recurrent drought and low response capacity. Moreover, projections by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa point to Africa’s annual food imports increasing significantly.
Given these worrying food security trends, Africa’s food systems must become more resilient and guarantee access to healthy and affordable diets for all. Tested systemic models have demonstrated that agriculture transformation is possible in input and output market systems, and that it can be scaled across the continent. Besides engaging in immediate recovery efforts, such as millions investments to tackle the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has supported African countries to build capacities for the design of agricultural sector strategies and evidence-based policy reforms. At a country level, AGRA has made significant strides in helping resource national agriculture programs, working closely with ministries of agriculture to design flagship programs. Some of the early dividends of this work include enhanced capacity of African governments to design and implement policies, and hence respond to emergent agricultural and food systems challenges. AGRA recognizes that “business as usual” is no longer sustainable and has therefore developed a program called “sustainable farming” to ensure that farmers concomitantly achieve three major livelihood objectives, namely Food security, protecting ecosystem services, and resilience to climate and other shocks. It employs context-specific farming system solutions with emphasis on improving water and nutrient efficiency of crops, replenishing over extracted nutrients through application of judicious amounts of fertilizer, and diversifying the farming systems with climate resilient crops and management practices.
To improve climate resilience, AGRA invested in the development of African scientists and African research institutions. AGRA has thus far trained national research system breeders at different educational levels, to create local capacity of genetic development.
Responding to the climate risks, Africa has capacity to breed and release varieties of crop that are climate adaptive; early maturing, and drought tolerant like cassava, maize, millet, sorghum, rapoko, rice, groundnuts, cowpeas, high iron beans, and b-carotene rich sweet potato that can be scaled.
Recognizing the malfunctional extension system in Africa, the introduction of private-sector led village-based agricultural advisors’ engagement has helped to reduce post-harvest losses by about 30 percent in countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Nigeria.
Strategic and urgent measures are needed to enhance the resilience of Africa’s food systems and bolster the ability to deliver on food security and nutrition objectives and these include: Accelerating the adoption and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in order to avert food supply disruptions, as experienced during the pandemic; providing an enabling policy environment for the financial sector to supply more business and financial tools to Agri-SMEs and supporting the establishment of Strategic Grain Reserves (SGRs) as a buffer against unexpected exogenous shocks. Social Protection Programs are also priorities and should be implemented with clear graduation targets for the beneficiaries.
Although Africa owns about 60 percent of the world’s potential land for agricultural expansion, 7 by 2050, about 45 percent of the additional food should come from sustainable intensification that is, producing more food per unit of land and water.
African food systems should be diversified, moving from the major global commodities: rice, wheat, and maize; and more investment must be made towards African indigenous and resilient crops including rapoko, sorghum, millets, rice and cassava.
Increasing investments in market infrastructure and other incentive mechanisms to support African farmers to adopt climate smart policies, technologies, and practices, including afforestation and rehabilitation of degraded lands, wetlands, and protected areas to enhance carbon sequestration and reduce carbon losses is very much recommended.
Investment in irrigation infrastructure is critical. Rainfed food production sits at the center of Africa’s livelihoods. This heavy reliance on rainfed systems exposes farmers to recurrent drought and other extreme events, hence water-centered adaptation must be a priority for Africa.
Increased availability of clean and renewable energy for rural Africa, the absence of which is currently contributing hugely to deforestation and climate change exposure. Africa’s level of exposure and vulnerability is connected to its low institutional capacity and governance systems. We need to ensure that national systems have the capacity to convert climate policies and commitments into action.
Early warning systems and associated climate advisories that are demand-driven and context specific, combined with climate change literacy and awareness, can help make the difference between coping and informed adaptation responses.
The war in Ukraine laid bare a vexing and persistent structural vulnerability in most African countries. The continent, with 60 percent of the world’s unused arable land, cannot feed itself because of low yields, poor farm management practices, and distortions in agricultural markets. Consequently, the continent is overly dependent on food and fertilizer imports to feed its people. Africa’s farmers find it increasingly difficult to enhance productivity, create jobs, and boost wealth in the agricultural sector. The Ukraine crisis should be a wake-up call. African countries must embrace a food systems approach to scale-up food production, overhaul farm management practices, and improve food marketing to move beyond food security and attain food sovereignty. This will not only ensure the availability of affordable food, but it will also help countries attain a number of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including: SDG Number 2 zero hunger, SDG 3 good health and wellbeing, SDG 5 gender equality, SDG 8 decent work and economic growth, and SDG10 reduced inequalities.
The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) highlighted the challenges Africa continues to face with regards to tackling the effects of climate change. While Africa is buoyed by the groundbreaking decision to establish a loss and damage fund, the failure to reach global consensus on tangible action that will reduce emissions reminds us of the difficult road ahead. Without this thorny issue being resolved, our efforts to attain food sovereignty will remain stymied.
Food sovereignty speaks to the ability of a country to feed itself. In Africa, this must involve increasing production and ensuring that farming systems are more resilient to price and environmental shocks. The 2006 Abuja Declaration of African agriculture ministers called for an increase in Africa’s average fertilizer application rates from 20 kg per hectare to 50 kg per hectare to boost production. Africa’s average application rates are still at 2006 levels, while the global average is slightly over 130 kg per hectare. While it is evident that fertilizers are not the proverbial silver bullet, it is clear that better farming practices could be a crucial first step in Africa’s journey towards food sovereignty. Recent UNDP research suggests that meeting the 2006 Abuja target could more than double Africa’s food production in a couple of years.
In order to accomplish this, Africa does not need to be overly dependent on fertilizer imports from Ukraine and Russia. The continent produces sufficient potash and ammonia to sustain a thriving fertilizer industry. In addition, existing fertilizer blending facilities and manufacturing plants operate well below capacity. Concerted investments in infrastructure, technology, and skills, including through public-private partnerships, could boost fertilizer production. Leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could also widen and deepen Africa’s market and facilitate the availability of affordable fertilizer across Africa. If fertilizer-producing plants were working at full capacity, the countries could meet its own millions of tons of fertilizer consumption, while also meeting the rest of the region’s needs.
Food sovereignty speaks to the ability of a country to feed itself. In Africa, this must involve increasing production and ensuring that farming systems are more resilient to price and environmental shocks.
Food sovereignty in Africa is not just about production and trade. It is also about resilience and ensuring that the continent’s food production is not held hostage by natural and market shocks. The use of technology, fertilizer, and improved farm management practices could revolutionize Africa’s food sector. In addition, African countries must take steps to reverse their dependence on food aid and food imports. Free or cheap food imports have made local food production in Africa less competitive and, in turn, shifted consumer preferences away from local brands to foreign ones. As a result, Africa is now the most food-import-dependent region in the world, dedicating more than 13 percent of its import expenditure to buying food and agricultural commodities. This contributes to overall fiscal stress.
Revolutionizing food production in Africa will improve the continent’s development prospects and build resilience. Using fertilizers produced in Africa and fully integrating research from Africa’s agricultural research institutes could help the continent attain food sovereignty by minimizing imports. This would make Africa’s food markets more resilient during global shocks and prevent the pass-through of global price shocks into domestic inflation. It would also have the added benefit of relieving stress on scarce foreign exchange earnings.
Assuming Africa had adhered to the 2006 Abuja Declaration and gradually increased fertilizer application rates per hectare, food production could have grown cumulatively by a bigger magnitude such as 200 per cent, instead of just 24 percent. Such an increase would have had a salutary impact on reducing hunger and addressing malnourishment.
The increased agricultural productivity would also significantly impact women and girls, helping Africa make more progress on SDG 5 regarding gender equality. According to research, women comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor-force in developing countries and are mainly concentrated in harvesting and weeding. Boosting food production could therefore also contribute to decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), especially for women and girls.
Despite progress in a few countries, Africa needs coordinated policy changes and sustained action to increase food production, improve distribution, ensure affordability, and reduce dependency. African leaders should prioritize incentives to increase domestic and regional food supply. This will include using appropriate inputs to boost and scale up production to cater to national and regional markets. An important goal in this context is the full operationalization and facilitation of the free movement of labor, inputs, and food across the one-Africa market. From a policy perspective, Africa must shift the narrative from food supply to developing resilient food systems. Africa’s default must no longer be only trying to address food availability. Policies must focus on ensuring that the entire continental food value chain is robust, profitable, and leaves no one and no community behind.
Africa’s development partners also have a critical role to play. While temporary aid is needed, the primary need is to fully support programs that de-risk and boost critical investments in Africa’s food sector. This will facilitate financial and technical resources to modernize food production, storage, and marketing in Africa. Africa’s development partners can also promote efforts to maximize regional food trade, by reducing disincentives and inefficiencies in global markets—such as dumping, subsidies, and tariff structures that would disadvantage or discourage domestic production in African countries.
Taking action to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts is crucial for long-term food security in Africa. This includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting renewable energy, implementing sustainable land management practices, and investing in climate-resilient infrastructure. International cooperation and support for African countries in adapting to climate change are also essential.
Providing comprehensive nutrition education programs at the community level can help raise awareness about healthy food choices, proper nutrition, and cooking practices. Additionally, improving access to healthcare services, especially for women and children, is crucial for addressing malnutrition and related health issues. As global citizens, we all have a role to play in addressing food insecurity in Africa. By supporting organisations and initiatives focused on sustainable agriculture, climate change mitigation, and poverty reduction, we can contribute to long-term solutions. Additionally, making conscious choices in our own lives, such as reducing food waste, supporting fair trade products, and advocating for sustainable practices, can create a ripple effect and inspire change at a larger scale. Emergency Action Alliance members are responding to many of these critical humanitarian crises.
Africa has strong prospects for achieving food security within a generation— provided its leadership effectively mobilizes domestic and foreign funds, drives strategic investments, and strengthens institutions that incentivise smallholders and other stakeholders to invest in resilient, high-productivity agriculture amid accelerating climate change.
This is undoubtedly a tall order. However, the time is now to seize the golden opportunity of regional market integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a catalyst for sustainable and inclusive agricultural transformation. Such a transformation can create powerful linkages across the economy, thereby fostering job-generating growth, particularly for youth, women and other marginalized groups.
African leadership stands at a crossroads: harness the continent’s vast potential—including its human capital—or continue with business as usual, risking a devastating human toll. While the challenges are substantial, successful experiences of market integration elsewhere suggest that transforming agriculture and agrifood remains a “low hanging fruit.”
Africa has a long history of food dependency, a legacy of food-aid policies and low domestic productive capacity. As a result, much of its food is imported, implying that any major global shock can lead to severe trade disruptions, increased hunger, and pass-through inflation, eroding both household and public budgets. Africa’s food sovereignty pathway involves enhancing agricultural productivity by improving farm management techniques.
UNDP analysis shows that Africa could easily produce the fertilizer inputs it needs, and that meeting the 2006 Abuja Declaration targets would boost food supply, while positively impacting the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGS).
Ensuring Africa’s food sovereignty—implying increased availability and affordability—is key to the continent’s own economic sovereignty, sustainable development, and achieving the SDGs.
Morgen Makombo Sikwila
MSc Peace and Governance
BSc Counselling
Diploma in Environmental Health
Certificate in Marketing Management
Phone Number: 0772823282
email address: morgensikwilam@gmail.com
