Agricultural development and food security in Africa

• Main Authors: Fantu Cheru, Renu Modi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Gents Afrika Platform, Afrika Brug 2015-02-01
• Series: Afrika Focus
• Online Access: https://ojs.ugent.be/AF/article/view/4747

Despite the Millenium Development Goals and the global interest in trying to guar- antee food security for all, the African continent is still suffering chronic food shortages. At any given time, several Sub-Saharan countries have dif culties meeting their popula- tions’ food demands for want of a stable production system, but essentially because of a lack of political stability. The global food crisis is deepening, as climate change leads to stagnating ordeclining agricultural productivity, as shortages of fertile land and water in- hibit the expansion of production that should follow growing population trends, and as growing demand for biofuel increases the competition for land. Given these extreme cir- cumstances, agricultural development and food security are, or ought to be, back at the top of the development agenda. Increasingly, both sovereign and private investors have set their sights on the African continent which still has abundant, and as yet unexploited, land reserves, as a potential source of global food and other agricultural commodities.