ALLEVIATING AFRICA’S
POVERTY THROUGH
AGRI-BUSINESS & AGRO-INDUSTRIES DEVELOPMENT
By: Hajia Sani
The first High Level Conference on the Development of
Agribusiness and Agro-industries in Africa (HLCD-3A) was held in
Abuja, Nigeria, from the 8th to the 10th of March, 2010. At the
end of the conference, Participants endorsed an ambitious plan
to generate employment, income and food security in Africa by
developing agribusiness and agro-industries.
The conference, which was attended by Heads of State, Prime
Ministers and Agriculture and Industry Ministers from 44 African
countries, as well as heads and representatives of financial
institutions and international organizations, endorsed the
African Agribusiness and Agro-industries Development Initiative,
or 3ADI. The Initiative comprises a programme framework and
associated financial modalities through which the public and
private sectors can mobilize resources for investment in agri-food
sector development in Africa.
The initiative builds on the commitment of the Comprehensive
Africa Agriculture Development Programme of the African Union’s
New Partnership for Africa’s Development, which seeks to create
by the Year 2020, an agricultural sector in Africa that consists
of highly productive and profitable value chains and accessible
and competitive local and international markets. This is
expected to translate to the supply of higher-value food, fibre,
feed and fuel products, increase farmers’ incomes, provide high
quality employment and ensure optimal and sustainable
utilisation of natural resources.
Speakers at the three-day conference spoke on the potentials
that Africa has in agricultural related businesses.One of such
speakers - Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said a
robust agribusiness and agro-industry sector holds the key to
the continents economic transformation and sustainable
development. The Nigerian leader said Africa must exploit her
resources and produce them for both local consumption and
export, add value to numerous agricultural produce and earth
resources and remain competitive to
overcome the global recession.
Africa is arguably one of the most endowed continents of the
world in terms of arable land mass. The continent’s geographical
location and tropical weather, as well as its diversely rich
soil content, gives it added advantage for massive agricultural
activities. Majority of Africa’s populations engage in one form
of farming or another, albeit at subsistence scales. Some of the
factors attributed for Africa’s under-productivity in the
agrarian sector include inconsistency in policies, insufficient
financing, low level mechanisation and industrialisation, as
well as poor pre and post harvest management of the agricultural
and agro-industrial products.
For many Africans, hunger and food insecurity continue to be a
daily reality because of increasing costs of staple food items,
in spite of the continent’s vast potentials. This, and the
recent global economic recession, increased Africa’s cereal
imports to forty-nine per cent in 2008 alone. Estimates provided
by several international agriculture organisations show that
Africa’s post-harvest losses are as high as thirty per cent for
cereals, fifty per cent for roots and tubers and seventy per
cent for fruits and vegetables.
Furthermore, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also
estimates that between the years 2005 and 2050, Sub-Saharan
Africa alone will require about nine hundred and forty billion
US dollars as cumulative global investment in agriculture and
downstream support services.
The emerging consensus today is for agriculture to take the
central focal point of the continent’s economic development.
This will require that investments in agriculture go beyond the
current stop-gap improvements in on-farm productivity to include
large-scale development of the agri-business and agro-industrial
sectors.
For the populations of Africa, the 3ADI conference will not be
another ‘all-talk, no-work’ white-elephant initiative that will
fizzle out in the not too distant future. Significantly,
intervention strategies will necessarily need to focus on the
formulation of enabling policies, reinforcing financing and risk
mechanisms through the creation of innovative institutions and
services, as well as the provision of requisite skills and
technologies for the post-production segments of the value
chains.
Given the pivotal potential that the 3ADI scheme possess,
African governments and agencies, continental and international
development partners and especially the private sector that will
be providing the financial back-bone of the initiative must
essentially work for the realisation of the framework of the
HLCD-3A into sustainable and efficient action plans, for
alleviating the poverty of the peoples of Africa and indeed, the
world.
