African food systems essential for improved food security

• The urgency to transform African food systems is not solely an agricultural or economic imperative but a moral, social, and ecological one.
• Africa is confronted with a heavy crisis of malnutrition, poverty, inequality, and unemployment. Food affordability and access are unevenly distributed, and gaps widen even further.
• Improving the performance of the food system is critical if we are to sustainably feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050 while raising farmer incomes, protecting them from climate change, and helping them to thrive.

Africa, a continent of great potential, stands at a crossroads. Africa has most of the world’s most fertile lands, immense resources, and a growing young population. However, it remains paradoxically entangled in the danger of food insecurity and malnutrition.

Challenges such as climate change, post-harvest losses, poor farming technologies, and inadequate supply chains persist. The urgency to change African food systems is not solely an agricultural or economic imperative but a moral, social, and ecological one.

Empowering Africa Food Systems for the Future encompasses ways Africa is uniquely structured to change its future and pave a sustainable and resilient trajectory for future generations.

About 64 per cent of the world’s available arable land is in Africa. The continent has a range of traditional agricultural practices and emerging technologies that can revolutionize food production and trade. Yet, the number of undernourished African people is rising, with an increase from 15.5 per cent to 20.3 per cent between 2010 and 2021.

The population in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to almost double by 2050, to reach about 2.1 billion people, which will further increase the demand for food. While efforts are being made to enhance Africa’s food security and resilience, existing food systems have not adequately addressed its needs and priorities.

Challenges and prospects for African food systems

Although African nations may produce or import enough food to provide adequate average energy per person, energy alone cannot ensure a nourished population.

Poor nutrition in staple foods contributes to prevailing malnutrition in all its forms. Africa is confronted with a heavy crisis of malnutrition, poverty, inequality, and unemployment. Food affordability and access are unevenly distributed, and gaps widen even further.

Increased food and fuel prices, the COVID-19 pandemic, population growth, and the state of the global economy, as well as climate change, are challenges that have exacerbated the risk of food insecurity, threatening attaining nutritious and sustainable diets.

In many African nations, a significant fraction of the population depends on agriculture for survival. Transforming agriculture and food systems is thus a necessary solution for addressing the challenges. To accomplish this, there is a greater need to deliver the main goals of the African agriculture and food security agenda: economic opportunities, poverty reduction, and shared prosperity.

Fighting against Climate Change for Africa’s Food Future

Failing to acknowledge the urgency of mitigating the climate crisis and hedging the importance of immediate action is a risky path Africa cannot afford. Climate change has exacerbated the risks of doing business.

The agricultural sector, the bedrock of many African economies, is highly vulnerable to the effects caused by climate change. Climate negligence will inevitably push Africa towards a tragic future characterized by catastrophic food insecurity and economic instability.

Inversely, this event offers Africa a unique opportunity and a call towards collective measures to recognize the stakes, unite in resolve, and make a sustainable trajectory toward resilience and prosperity. The urgency of climate action and mitigation demands combined efforts encompassing technology innovations, science, policy, and funding. Technological innovations hold the power to revolutionize agriculture, making it more resilient and sustainable.

An excellent example of this united front is the Great Green Wall initiative, aimed at tackling desertification across the Sahel region. This combined effort involves more than 20 African countries, showing the value of shared vision and action.

The initiative aims to stop encroachment and improve soil fertility to create sustainable livelihoods for local communities by planting many trees, protecting vegetation, and encouraging agroforestry. Such initiatives show the importance of collective resilience-building in the face of climate disruptions and restoring degraded landscapes.

Proper policies and cross-sectoral talks are also crucial. Governments across the continent must improve their national adaptation policies and plans to promote sustainable land use, encourage agroforestry, secure biodiversity, and foster renewable energy to power agri-food systems’ value chains.

Read Also: Climate-smart agriculture: balancing food security with climate goals

Empowering Women and youth  in African food systems

Although, women and the youth are the force behind the agricultural sector, especially on smallholder farms they are the most affected by climate challenges and poverty due to the many roadblocks to their access to education, financing, and other required resources. Similarly, it is known that millions of African young people enter the labour market every year, with only a tiny fraction able to secure decent employment.

Agriculture will give the floor to women and youths to showcase their innovations and establish the action needed to empower them to overcome the challenges they face and use their full potential to revolutionize food systems across the continent.

Addressing climate change is not a one-man endeavour. It is a multifaceted challenge that requires collective action, innovation, and inclusion to revive food systems, face emerging challenges, and ensure a bright future.

Although the path ahead may be demanding, the rewards are immeasurable. Collectively, Africa can shift the tide and cultivate a resilient food future. Africa holds immense hope, a devotion to resilience, and the possibility of a bountiful harvest. Now, more than ever, the call for a united front echoes across African fields, cities, and communities. Together, the continent can establish a productive, healthy, inclusive, resilient, and stable food future for Africa.

Trends shaping the Future of Food in Africa

Today, the world faces the pressing challenge of unsustainable food production and consumption practices. Today’s food system is the primary driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss, generating a quarter of global greenhouse gas pollution.

Hence, improving the performance of the food system is critical if we are to sustainably feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050 while raising farmer incomes, protecting them from climate change, and helping them to thrive.

Digitally driven technologies can potentially deliver significant positive impacts across food value chains. These range from innovations that can make food systems more resource-efficient and climate-resilient, such as precision agriculture, gene-editing, and biological-based crop protection, to technologies that improve traceability from farm to fork.

Adapting digital technologies to improve food systems overcomes challenges and creates opportunities, including transparency of agricultural value chains, more intelligent farms, and improved public services. It also minimises some risks, including an over-concentration of service providers, poor data governance, and exclusion. The report presents a set of potential entry points for public sector action to seize the opportunities that expanding rural network coverage can bring.