Africa: So Much Land...not Enough Crops

New Approaches to Farming May Be the Answer

It's early in the evening and I'm watching some silly television variety show complete with dancing girls and amateur singers. Every so often the program is interrupted by appeals for money to buy food for the beleaguered country of Africa. I've made donations in various forms and for various organizations, but I have to wonder just how much donations of this kind actually help. You would think that Africa -- a country that for example has half the population of India (itself a country that only has 1/12 of the land area Africa yet is food self-sufficient) -- would be able to feed itself but can't, despite the country's seemingly abundant resources. A simple question with a complex answer.

Consider the facts:

According to an 18 April article posted on www.truthabouttrade.org African agriculture is far behind when compared to other developing regions: only 7% of the arable land is irrigated compared to 40% in Asia. In Africa, only 22 kilograms of fertilizer is applied per hectare of arable land compared to 144 kilograms in Asia. What's more, the number of tractors per 1,000 hectares of arable land is 3 times greater in Asia and 8 times greater in Latin America than in Africa. The road density is more than 2.5 times higher in Latin America and 6 times higher in Asia than in Africa.

Not to mention that institutions of agricultural higher education, research and extension are poorly staffed, under equipped and funded.

I don't mean to kick a country when it's down. It's probably a good thing that Truth about Trade didn't use the United States as its base otherwise we'd really see a difference in production and output.