The most ubiquitous images of Africa usually include a scorched, barren landscape and some insanely thin babies. People starving. No food. And one usually gets the impression that we — the West — must swoop in and save the day. “Let us feed those babies!” we collectively swoon.But a recent book published jointly by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and International Livestock Research Institute suggests that the solution to Africa's food problem doesn't need to be imported. In fact, African farms already have the potential to alleviate the chronic hunger that afflicts the population so relentlessly.
Right now the poor populations of rural Africa are more vulnerable than ever, thanks to being subject to recent steep price increases on food as well as a growing population. Any small tremor in supply or whisper of price increase is enough to throw thousands of food insecure people into famine. But more surprising and definitely more ironic is the fact that African farmers often produce more than they can sell. The problem is not the lack of food, it's the inability to efficiently get food to the people who need it. According to the book, "research has shown that on average, 25 to 50 percent of crops produced on African farms spoil in the fields and in East Africa alone up to US$90 million worth of milk is lost per year due to spoilage."
This disconnect is due to a number of factors that include farmers' inability to properly preserve and store their surplus, a tangled clusterfuck of agricultural policies, trade tariffs and other bureaucratic nonsense, and a simple but paralyzing lack of communication.“We can’t control the weather or international commodities speculators, but there are many things we can do to improve market conditions in Africa that will increase food availability and help stabilize food prices across the continent,” said Anne Mbaabu, director of the Market Access Program at AGRA.
The book, titled Towards Priority Actions for Market Development for African Farmers, proposes several strategies to bridge the gap between excess and need: providing farmers with storage ability, giving those farmers loans using their stored surplus as collateral so they can modernize their equipment and increase capability, unraveling the tangled web of African agricultural policy, allowing small-hold farmers to join cooperatives, and simply connecting farmers with each other. The ability to communicate and share information helps farmers in very real ways. As the book states:
bq. An agriculture market information system operated by Esoko, an NGO based in Accra, is allowing farmers in several African countries to obtain and transmit up-to-date information via cell phone on such issues as prices, offers, weather, buyers, transportation, and crop diseases. There is already evidence of Esoko helping farmers boost income. In Northern Ghana, farmers are projecting a 68% improvement in revenues after two years of using the service to facilitate sales.
Cell phone technology has already transformed the landscape of African banking, allowing users to store and transfer money using their phones instead of a distant and probably unaffordable bank for every transaction. This application of mobile technology was actually quite revolutionary and Africa led the charge. People in Western Africa have also figured out how to share digital music files through mobile phone blue tooth connections.
We can only hope that the farming industry in Africa can leverage communication technology to feed people propel development.