African agriculture has apparently undergone little development over the long term, especially when compared to Asian agriculture and the success of the Green Revolution studied in the numerous works of Gilbert Etienne (see, in particular, Etienne, Gourou, 1985 or Etienne, Griffon, Guillaumont, 1993). The low productivity of agriculture is an essential factor in blocking the economy. Cash crop agriculture provides 40% of Africa’s export earnings and is the main source of revenue for the State. Food crops must feed a population that is growing by more than 3% per year and an urban population that is growing at a rate of about 5%. Agriculture potentially plays an important role in development as an essential link, a source of savings and manpower for industry, and a factor of outlets for industry. However, it represents less than 20% of African GDP.
Sub-Saharan Africa is, however, a mixed bag. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, large-scale farming by “white” farmers is dominant. Two relatively dynamic agricultural areas are emerging, in East Africa (with the exception of the Horn of Africa) and in West Africa, countries with a rather high population density. The vast diagonal from Sudan to Namibia, on the other hand, is characterized by low densities and low yields. The areas of high insecurity (Angola, Mozambique, Chad, Africa of the Great Lakes) are obviously experiencing a particularly strong agricultural crisis (see Raison, 1996). “The complexity of agricultural systems in Africa today does not allow for simplistic judgments” (Couty, 1996). The cropping patterns range from slash-and-burn to irrigated cropping, and include labor-intensive, mechanized, and input-intensive cropping. A link can be observed between these systems and demographic pressure, but also with the possibilities of financing inputs, the mode of land appropriation or the implementation of innovations (e.g. cotton or improved seeds).
Agricultural dynamics can be seen in commercial food crops or certain export crops, notably cotton. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen its population double since 1970 and its urban population quadruple. However, it appears that agricultural supply has generally met urban demand and agri-food imports remain limited.
After presenting some of the symptoms of low agricultural growth over the long term (I), we will analyze the impact of liberalization policies (II) before proposing an institutional analysis in terms of commodity chains (III).
- AFRICA’S LOW AGRICULTURAL GROWTH
Structural features of African agriculture
Several general features appear beyond the major differences in cropping and production systems (Raison, 1994):
- Food production, primary processing and marketing of food products mainly concern women, whose working hours are greater than those of men. The latter tend to specialize in land clearing and export crops. Agriculture is characterized by a sexual division of labor and low specialization with respect to the market;
- Labor productivity is low due to very little mechanization and low input use. Forty days of work with a hoe are needed for four with a plow for one hectare. On average, one worker cultivates one hectare in the Sahel, fifty ares in the Sudanese zone and twenty-five ares in the equatorial forest (source: Raison, 1996);
- The integration of agriculture and livestock is reduced, water control is limited, and the practice of long fallows and slash-and-burn dominates (two to three years of cultivation out of ten years of fallow in the Sudanese zone, two years out of twenty-five years in the forest zone);
- Climatic risks are poorly controlled. African agriculture, which is not very artificial, suffers from the effects of drought (Sahel, southern Africa). The intensification of inputs replacing labor increases labor productivity but also accentuates the agricultural risk;
- The risks of ecosystem degradation are significant. This results in strong migratory pressures;
- Finally, the absence or weakness of private property rights leads to usage rights that generally grant possession of the soil to the person who cultivates it. However, we are seeing the development of private appropriation of land.
P. Pelissier has shown the farmer’s preference for “extensive farming, which pays off while intensive farming feeds” in a context of low population density and/or low land appropriation. The peasantry faces climatic hazards, availability of labor, access to credit and inputs, or outlets that make capital-intensive intensification too risky. Agricultural facilities that reduce these risks (irrigation, drainage, means of communication, etc.) and that justify inputs are rare.
Agriculture is one of the main sources of surplus, but more through the play of relative prices than through progress in productivity. Consequently, the extraction of the surplus through low product valuation is done at the expense of its long-term dynamics. It is the countries that have adopted incentive prices (Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi), and/or stabilized prices, that have experienced notable progress in production.
The factors blocking agriculture intervene differently depending on the production system: policy distortions, unfavorable prices, rural emigration, low levels of public investment, marketing and supply difficulties, outdated or inappropriate technologies, climatic factors (e.g., drought), ecological factors (desertification), social factors (land tenure or lineage structures) or political factors (e.g., war and insecurity) are all factors that have played a role in different ways.
Food security and food agriculture
The chronically undernourished population of 96 million (out of 268 million in 1969-71) would be (…)
According to official statistics, which are relatively divergent, Sub-Saharan Africa is on the whole marked by a weak growth in its agricultural and food production. The nutritional level of the populations is apparently tending to regress.
Based on 100 in 1970, it would be 80 in 1991. Per capita food production would have gone from (…)
According to the FAO, per capita food production, which was constant during the 1960s, fell by 1.2% annually during the 1970s4. These figures are, however, challenged by studies such as WALTPS (1994) which estimate that the agricultural surplus put on the market since 1960 has grown annually at a rate of 2.6%. Africa also has major supply problems within the agri-food sector (trade, storage, transport, processing, distribution, lack of fluidity and speed of supply flows, lack of infrastructure, inadequate legislation, low productivity of small-scale units).
Subsistence agriculture, of the extensive type, remains poorly integrated into the market (gathering or slash-and-burn). It uses “traditional” methods of cultivation (associated crops), brush clearing (slash and burn) and production techniques (hoe, machete). In long fallow, beyond 30 inhabitants/km2 , the system of associated and shifting cultivation cannot ensure the safeguarding of the soil. In regions with a higher population density (e.g., Kenya or the Bamileké Plateau), fallows do not exceed three years, agriculture is more intensive and crops are often continuous. Modern family farming is almost absent. Modernized intensive farming with irrigation, double annual harvesting, fertilization, and the use of high-yielding seeds and plants is found only in a few areas (e.g., the Bamileke of Cameroon, Zimbabwe). Progress in productivity has been recorded in the large irrigated areas. However, production costs are high (e.g., Middle Valley of Senegal).
It is, however, very difficult to make a synthesis for Africa. Information systems are not very reliable. The opacity of the information refers to imperfect records in societies with deficient statistics. It is due to self-consumption and economic circuits operating outside of registration. African spaces are poorly integrated and lead to disparate prices or quantities.
African societies are also characterized by a high degree of instability in agricultural production, flows and prices. This makes statistical data collection very difficult. The differences between monthly, annual and multi-year trends can be considerable. It is very difficult, beyond the fluctuations, to define medium and long-term trends.
Finally, aggregate statistics are an important issue at the level of the authorities, particularly in order to benefit from certain forms of aid. They are therefore often “constructed for the needs of the cause”. The macro-economic estimates of consumption or agri-food production used by the FAO must therefore be used with caution. Production is estimated by applying to rural populations, which are very poorly known, yields and surface areas evaluated from certain samples. Agricultural production, calculated on the basis of the rural population, obviously decreases the more the population decreases. The linking of urban population and agricultural production statistics thus results in a bias included in the calculation method. Food consumption or availability is obtained using the method of balances accumulating the various errors.
Agri-food imports
Food products are those of SITC sections 0.1 and 4 and division 22 (food products).
In terms of quantity, net imports of cereals, which were negligible in the 1950s, increased by 9% in the 1980s (…)
The relative crisis of African agri-food systems is reflected in a relative deterioration of the agri-food balance5 . The food self-sufficiency rate of 98% in 1960 had fallen to 90% by 1972. Agricultural imports in value terms had increased by a factor of 5.4 between 1970 and 1980 and food imports by a factor of 7.26.
However, these figures need to be put into perspective; the per capita food deficit in West Africa is eight times lower than in North Africa and is declining; food imports represent less than 10 percent of food consumption; the food trade balance in SSA (in nutritional terms) remains balanced and per capita food imports are low compared to other regions. Cereal imports as a percentage of exports of goods and services increased from 3.8 percent (1973) to 3.8 percent (1980), 5.5 percent (1985), 4.2 percent (1991), and 5.2 percent (1992). Developments in francophone Africa are very different (see Table 1).
Table 1. Weight of cereal imports on exports of goods and services (%)
Source: Makaya, 1996
Source : Phillipe Hugon – L’agriculture en Afrique subsaharienne restituée dans son environnement institutionnel