Food security and the attendant success in agriculture are being seen as the silver bullet towards bringing down the cost of living and ensuring healthy lives for people on the continent.
According to the Head of Policy, Advocacy and Food systems at AGRA, Boaz Keizire if countries are able to put in place “clear and coherent policies, countries will be able to ensure that they achieve food security.”
In an interview at the Validation Workshop for Post Malabo CAADP Agenda Technical Working Groups meeting in Lusaka, Zambia Keizire said issues affecting agriculture on the continent are systemic, but this can be overcome by ensuring that the principles of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) which was initiated in 2003 in Maputo and is an important policy framework are effectively adopted by all member states.
“We never had sufficient coordination among all Africa member states,” he says and adds that “We came with a common position on Africa agriculture under CAADP, but in terms of members states complying to drive that common position, that is why the adoption of CAADP has not been sufficient as where it should be.”
The Head of Policy, Advocacy and Food systems at AGRA is warning that African states are stuck in what the former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkuruma warned that African leaders could one day struggle in leadership due to inability to feed their populace.
“Indeed many African countries have continued to struggle to survive hunger, malnutrition, food shortage and the attendant food insecurity,’ says Keizire and adds, “unless Africa gets it right with its development agenda in the agriculture sector, the continent will continue to struggle and the leaders will struggle to lead their respective countries.”
However, he notes that the recommitment of leaders towards investment in agriculture holds promise for the continent, “food security is a critical issue, and any leader who gets it right with the food security is able to comfortably lead,” says Keizire and adds.
The Head of Policy, Advocacy, and Food Systems at AGRA says that the introduction of Biennial Review in which all member states take part is also aiding to the realization that evidence-based planning is key to achieving the intended goals in agriculture transformation.
He warns that the 20 years of CAADP have seen a level of stagnation among countries in their agriculture productivity, “we know that the CAADP biennial review had no country that met the goals and target,” he says and adds that “some may argue that the targets were higher, but they were not high, as we know that there are people who are still dying of hunger in some of the member states, we know that there people who are still poor and we haven’t achieved our vision but there has been progress,”
Keizire is appealing to member states to begin to plan for external shocks that may continue to affect the agriculture sector including climate change as well as pandemics like COVID-19 “that brought farming activities in many countries to a bare minimum.”
He is urging for better planning, “building the resilience of households, making sure that every household on the continent can have household assets that when a shock hits, they can recover and be part of the agricultural economy,” says Keizire noting that with sufficient household assets, a household can survive through shocks like floods and droughts that have become cyclic on the continent.
AGRA, he said, is aiding the continent’s states in building resilient seed systems that enable countries to be productive and ensure quality agricultural practices. “seed is the foundation of every growing living thing,” adding that having functional market systems and trade within the country and across the borders is very important.
The head of policy noted that building the capacity of governments to deliver on their mandate, such as putting in place policies and the right environment for businesses to function adding that the success of the Program of Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) will see the success of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) because the commodities being produced will require an operational infrastructure that ensures the transportation of the goods.
“In this way, we will realize that it is possible to transport commodities from surplus areas to deficit areas by expanding growth corridors,” he says and notes that next phase of CAADP there is a need to see how the continent can begin to reinvest on the continent, the over US$ 50 billion that is spent annually on food imports from outside the continent.
