Greetings,
This might be of interest to some of you, specially those of you in
the field of Agriculture.
regards,
Momodou Camara
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Copyright 1999 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 15-Oct-99 ***
Title: FOOD-AFRICA: Restoring Soil Fertility Key to Food Production
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (IPS) - Food production in Africa - whose population is
the world's fastest-growing - cannot be substantially increased unless its
soil is conserved and restored, according to a new analysis by the United
Nations.
The region - which is also the world's poorest - suffers severe soil
degradation compared to other developing regions where the Green Revolution
has boosted the production of staple crops largely by developing and
disseminating high-yield varieties of rice, wheat, maize, and other foods.
"The Green Revolution as it was achieved in Asia and Latin America will be
impossible in Africa unless we can improve the quality of the soil on which
these new varieties are supposed to thrive," says Uzo Mokwunye, director of
the Ghana-based UN University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa
(INRA).
The stakes are high. Unless sub-Saharan Africa can boost food production in
the coming years, starvation and poverty could reach unprecedented levels,
according to the analysis, released to coincided with World Food Day
Saturdsay.
Already, an estimated 30 percent of African children today suffer
malnutrition.
If current trends continue, the region, which was a net food exporter in
1950, will produce enough food for only 40 percent of the projected one
billion inhabitants who are expected to live there in 2025.
That will be almost double the 550 million people living there today.
While research centres in the developing world continue to devote
substantial time and expertise to developing new varieties of staples which
can be used in Africa, they face special challenges given the poverty of the
soils there.
"These programmes (for plant breeding and crop improvements) will bear much
more fruit if we can improve the soil," says Moctar Toure, who heads the
World Bank's Special Programme for African Agricultural Research.
Most African soils are naturally low in key nutrients compared to richer
soils in other parts of the world. "African farmers have been ingenious
throughout the centuries in coaxing crops from such poor conditions," says
Mokwunye.
Add to that four major human influences causing soil degradation -
overgrazing; inefficient farming practices, such as improper use of
fertilizers, irrigation and heavy machinery; overexploitation of existing
agricultural land; and deforestation through logging and clearing for new
farmland.
Soils traditionally have been replenished by crop residues and animal
manure, but these potential sources of nutrients increasingly are being used
in Africa as fodder for livestock and household fuel.
At the same time, other soil fertility conservation practices - such as
allowing land to lie fallow, crop rotation and inter-cropping - have broken
down due to the growing demand for arable land by a rapidly growing
population.
In addition, more marginal land - including forests - is constantly being
brought under cultivation, because it is often cheaper to bring new land
into production than to maintain or improve land that already that has
suffered major losses in nutrients from decades of farming.
The region faces a vicious circle: increasingly desperate demand for arable
land results in its faster deterioration, making it yet more difficult to
increase productivity.
As a result, Africa lags far behind the rest of the world in increasing crop
yields.
Average African farm yields for important cereals such as maize, rice,
sorghum and wheat now lag far behind other regions:
1.3 tonnes per hectare, compared with 4.8 tonnes in China, 2.2 tonnes in
India, 4.7 tonnes in the United States, and 3.0 worldwide, according to the
analysis.
Yet the situation is not irreversible, according to Mokwunye and other
experts at the World Bank and the Consultative Group for International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a consortium of more than a dozen
international research centres and their major donors.
The United Nations estimates that African farmers could quadruple maize
yields, triple sorghum yields, and more than double their rice and wheat
yields if they receive the necessary support for improving soils and
acquiring high-yielding plant varieties.
African ministers have already developed National Action Plans that would
accomplish those goals at a cost that the UN estimates at between 100 and
500 million dollars per country per year over ten years.
"If its food production potential is met, Africa could again be a net food
exporter," says Mokwunye.
But international co-operation and support will be vital. The 1996 Food
Summit at UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome launched the
Soil Fertility Initiative for Africa which is designed to co-ordinate the
efforts of all key players, including the INRA, the World Bank, CGIAR, and
African governments.
CGIAR, which has three food-crop research centres in Africa working on rice,
tropical agriculture, and agro-forestry, has developed a natural resource
management programmes which are designed mainly designed to address
soil-fertility problems, according to Manuel Lantin, CGIAR's chief science
advisor.
CGIAR, with a 350 million dollar annual budget, also is devoting more of its
resources to Africa. "Forty percent of the CG's total resources now go to
Africa," says Lantin.
The World Bank is also devoting more of its lending resources to agriculture
in Africa. During the 1990's its agricultural loans to the region averaged
some 180 million dollars a year. For 2000, that investment is supposed to
rise to 250 million dollars.
African ministers are urging the Bank, Africa's largest single source of
development capital, to increase its lending to agricultural projects in the
region by two billion dollars over the next 15 years to address soil
fertility.
Initially, the Bank should provide up to 360 million dollars between
2000-2004 for implementing new soil fertility National Action Plans in 12
countries, the Africans say.
INRA, which specialises in training and facilitating African scientists and
researchers, also hopes to raise 15 million dollars to conduct its work,
according to Mokwunye. (END/IPS/jl/mk/99)
Origin: ROMAWAS/FOOD-AFRICA/
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[c] 1999, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
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