From fed by the world to food security : Accelerating agricultural development in Africa

Breman, H.; Schut, A.G.T.; Seligman, N. G.

doi:10.18174/498300

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(103 reference statements)

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“…Initiatives and policies that encourage agricultural intensification are needed to counteract the tendencies of agriculture to spatially expand and further encroach into savanna, woodlands, and forests. As crop yield gaps are typically large in West Africa, the potential for yield improvements through fertilizer use, improved crop varieties and integrated soil fertility management is considerable 55 . Defining and protecting wildlife corridors connecting parks and reserves where larger stretches of savanna and forest are still intact may prevent the complete fragmentation of remnant primary vegetation observed for example in Nigeria's Middle Belt.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accelerating land cover change in West Africa over four decades as population pressure increased

Herrmann

Brandt

Rasmussen

et al. 2020

Commun Earth Environ

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Rapid population growth in West Africa has exerted increasing pressures on land resources, leading to observable changes in the land cover and land use. However, spatially explicit and thematically detailed quantitative analyses of land cover change over long time periods and at regional scale have been lacking. Here we present a change intensity analysis of a Landsat-based, visually interpreted, multi-date (1975, 2000, 2013) land cover dataset of West Africa, stratified into five bioclimatic sub-regions. Change intensities accelerated over time and increased from the arid to the sub-humid sub-regions, as did population densities. The area occupied by human-dominated land cover categories more than doubled from 493,000 km2 in 1975 to 1,121,000 km2 in 2013. Land cover change intensities within 10 km of new settlement locations exceeded the region-wide average by up to a factor of three, substantiating the significant role of population pressure as a force of change. The spatial patterns of the human footprint in West Africa, however, suggest that not only population pressure but also changing socioeconomic conditions and policies shape the complexity of land cover outcomes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accelerating land cover change in West Africa over four decades as population pressure increased

Herrmann

Brandt

Rasmussen

et al. 2020

Commun Earth Environ

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“…The general farming systems evolution model originating from the work of Boserup (1965) and Ruthenberg (1980) suggests that under influence of two main driving factorspopulation pressure and market accessfarming systems intensify and land productivity increases. This intensification usually consists of (combinations of) fallow reduction, soil fertility management, mechanization of cultivation practices and crop-livestock integration, requiring labour and capital investment, and often depending on land tenure arrangements.…”

Section: Heterogeneous Pathways Of Intensification Extensification and Marginalisation In Farming Systems Of Sub-saharan Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Historical trends suggest that a certain population density is necessary for intensification to occur; in African countries yields have increased only where population densities exceed 2.5 people per ha (Breman et al, 2019 explanation for the lack of a Green Revolution in sub-Saharan Africa (Djurfeldt et al, 2005).…”

Section: Population Density or Alternative Jobs? What Drives Agricultural Transformation In Developing Countries?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike most of Asia, most of Africa is not characterised by a rapidly expanding urban manufacturing sector that can absorb rural-urban migrants. Relative high wages in comparison to Asia are probably an important factor in this sluggish industrial development, partly because food prices are relatively high (Breman et al, 2019). In Africa, 'consumption cities' predominate over 'production cities'.…”

Section: The Future Of Smallholder Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The future of farming: Who will produce our food?

Giller¹,

Delaune²,

Silva³

et al. 2021

Food Sec.

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205

111

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Achieving SDG2 (zero hunger) in a situation of rapid global population growth requires a continued focus on food production. Farming not merely needs to sustainably produce nutritious diets, but should also provide livelihoods for farmers, while retaining natural ecosystems and services. Rather than focusing on production principles, this article explores the interrelations between farms and farming systems in the global food system. Evaluating farming systems around the world, we reveal a bewildering diversity. While family farms predominate, these range in size from less than 0.1 ha to more than 10,000 ha, and from hand hoe use to machine-based cultivation, enabling one person to plant more than 500 ha in a day. Yet, farming in different parts of the world is highly interdependent, not least because prices paid for farm produce are largely determined by global markets. Furthermore, the economic viability of farming is a problem, globally. We highlight trends in major regions of the world and explore possible trajectories for the future and ask: Who are the farmers of the future? Changing patterns of land ownership, rental and exchange mean that the concept of ‘what is a farm’ becomes increasingly fluid. Next to declining employment and rural depopulation, we also foresee more environmentally-friendly, less external input dependent, regionalised production systems. This may require the reversal of a global trend towards increasing specialisation to a recoupling of arable and livestock farming, not least for the resilience it provides. It might also require a slow-down or reversal of the widespread trend of scale enlargement in agriculture. Next to this trend of scale enlargement, small farms persist in Asia: consolidation of farms proceeds at a snail’s pace in South-east Asia and 70% of farms in India are ‘ultra-small’ – less than 0.05 ha. Also in Africa, where we find smallholder farms are much smaller than often assumed (< 1 ha), farming households are often food insecure. A raft of pro-poor policies and investments are needed to stimulate small-scale agriculture as part of a broader focus on rural development to address persistent poverty and hunger. Smallholder farms will remain an important source of food and income, and a social safety net in absence of alternative livelihood security. But with limited possibilities for smallholders to ‘step-up’, the agricultural engine of growth appears to be broken. Smallholder agriculture cannot deliver the rate of economic growth currently assumed by many policy initiatives in Africa.

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“…Agricultural development is key to wean the continent off foreign food supply [1] . Improvement of agricultural productivity brings far more than food self-sufficiency; it reduces costs of food and increases labor productivity on farms and supply of labor for off-farm economic activities, and increases demand for services [2] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable intensification of agriculture in Africa

Schut¹

2020

Front. Agr. Sci. Eng.

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Sustainable intensification is a key component of agricultural development in Africa, urgently needed to wean the continent off foreign food supply and to limit agricultural farmland expansion. It is expected that a relatively small fraction of farmers will adopt fertilizer technology, as profits in current economic settings are relatively small while risks are considerable with varying prices and uncertain yield responses. Many smallholders depend on off-farm income and local markets for food supply. Structural adjustments are therefore needed to allow management of larger units of land by trained farmers willing to take this opportunity, while recognizing land right sensitivities. There are large opportunities for African commodity crops to improve food security, including cassava and East African highland banana that strongly respond to fertilizer with limited environmental risks under good management. This requires investments in better functioning markets, local fertilizer production facilities that can produce regional crop blends and cost-efficient distribution networks, providing balanced fertilizers for African farmers.

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From fed by the world to food security : Accelerating agricultural development in Africa

Abstract: IV Thanks Wil Kroon for all your time, taking care of the layout of the book as well as the design of the cover.

Cited by 7 publications

References 58 publications

Accelerating land cover change in West Africa over four decades as population pressure increased

Accelerating land cover change in West Africa over four decades as population pressure increased

The future of farming: Who will produce our food?

Sustainable intensification of agriculture in Africa

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