Agricultural technology can turn African Savannah into global food basket – African Development Bank

Press release

The African Development Bank has determined that the African Savannah can support the production of maize, soybean, and livestock, and transform the continent into a net exporter of these commodities

IOWA, United States of America, October 25, 2018/ -- The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) is championing a new regional and global effort to transform the African Savannah from a “Sleeping Giant” to the cradle of the continent’s green revolution.

“This sleeping giant needs to wake up,” the Bank’s Vice-President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, Jennifer Blanke, told an audience at a 2018 World Food Prize side event in Des Moines, Iowa last week.  Blanke described Africa’s nearly 400 million hectares of Savannah zones as “the world’s largest agricultural frontier,” and if a small fraction of that cultivatable land – some 16 million hectares - is transformed, it could well set Africa up to decrease dependence on food imports, feed itself and contribute to feeding the world.

Africa is host to 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, but currently spends an estimated US$35 billion per year on importing food. This figure is projected to shoot up to US$110 billion by 2025. Africa is importing what it should actually be producing: 22 million metric tons of maize, two million metric tons of soybean, one million metric tons of broiler meat and 10 million metric tons of milk product each year. This situation is made worse when African countries export raw goods outside the continent to be processed into consumer products imported back into Africa for purchase. In essence, Africa is exporting jobs outside the continent, and contributing to Africa’s poverty challenges.

The African Development Bank has determined that the African Savannah can support the production of maize, soybean, and livestock, and transform the continent into a net exporter of these commodities. Only ten percent of the African Savannah is under cultivation – better utilized, small sections of Africa’s grasslands could provide direct jobs for tens of millions of young people and indirect jobs for many more.

Blanke, who spoke on behalf of African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, noted that all of Africa’s Savannah is more than twice as large as Brazil’s “Cerrados” that launched that country’s farming economy success. She said transforming a small part of Africa’s mixed woodland grasslands, in a smart and sustainable way, can produce enough to supply all the continent’s maize, soybean, and livestock requirements.

Brazil transformed its tropical Cerrados into a US$54 billion food industry within two decades through skillful development of production technologies for new crop and livestock varieties; innovative soil and crop management programs adapted to the tropics; wide-scale dissemination of new agricultural technologies; low interest loans, and ambitious rural development programs.
The Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation for the Savannahs (TAAT-S) initiative seeks to transform 16 million Ha out of Africa’s 400 million Ha of Savannah into an agribusiness hive for the production of maize, soybean, and livestock. That is just about four percent of the continent’s mixed woodland and grassland areas. If African countries can harness the available technologies with the right policies, they will rapidly raise agricultural productivity and incomes for farmers, as well as assure lower food prices for consumers.

Vice President Blanke led a Bank delegation selling the merits of its TAAT-S initiative at the World Food Prize gathering. The Bank’s TAAT-S session discussed training, innovation, entrepreneurship, and policy support for transformation of African Savannahs.

To ensure effective implementation, the Bank has looked to Brazil’s agri-business success story to engage with organizations with proven track record in tropical and conservation agriculture. These include the Brazilian Research Corporation and the Agricultural Corporation of Brazil, the Argentine Association of Zero-tillage, and the Argentine Agricultural Research Institute – all part of a systematic effort at technology introduction and adaptation.

TAAT-S was launched in October 2017 in Ghana and has since been operating in Zambia, Guinea and Gabon. The Bank expects to launch TAAT-S in Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Mozambique next year.

When TAAT-S is fully implemented, Africa can expect to double its maize production from a current 50 million metric tons per annum to 100 million metric tons, to triple soybean production from less than three million metric tons to nine million metric tons, and to double livestock production from 8.5 million metric tons to 16 million metric tons by 2025.

The TAAT-S session was part of Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium, held in conjunction with the World Food Prize Laureate Ceremony. The US$250,000 World Food Prize recognizes accomplishments of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world. African Development Bank President Adesina is the 2017 World Food Prize laureate.

Oxfam reads climate report and looks at Africa

Oxfam press release (edited)

Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report detailing progress and pathways to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Since Africa remains the continent with the highest Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU), affecting almost 21 percent of the population (more than 256 million people) [i], it is natural to be concerned about how this continent is affected. Oxfam's response follows:

"A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa. Today at only 1.1 degrees of warming globally, crops and livestock across the region are being hit and hunger is rising, with poor small scale women farmers, living in rural areas suffering the most. It only gets worse from here. To do nothing more and simply follow the commitments made in the Paris Agreement condemns the world to 3 degrees of warming. The damage to our planet and humanity would be exponentially worse and irreparable.

"None of this is inevitable. What gives us hope is that some of the poorest and lowest emitting countries are now leading the climate fight. We've moved from an era of 'you first' to 'follow me' - it's time for the rich world to do just that. Oxfam calls for increased, responsible and accountable climate finance from rich countries that supports small scale farmers, especially women to realize their right to food security and climate justice". 

Fluctuations in agricultural production due to climate variations along with inefficient agricultural systems cause food insecurity, one of the most obvious indicators of poverty.  The 2016 El Niño phenomenon, which was super charged by the effects of climate change, crippled rain-fed agricultural production and left over 40 million people foods insecure in Africa. Without urgent action to reduce global emissions, the occurrence of climate shocks and stresses in the Africa region are expected to get much worse.

• On 5 July this year, Africa is likely to have registered its hottest reliable record temperature in Ouargla, northern Algeria, of 51.3C (124.3F).[ii]
• There is mounting evidence that higher temperatures linked to climate change have worsened drought and humanitarian disaster in East Africa, including last year’s drought which left over 13 million people dangerously hungry.[iii]
• Even at 1.5 degrees of warming, climate impacts in West Africa would be devastating. Wheat yields could fall by up to 25 percent,[iv] and at 1.5 degrees Lagos in Nigeria could become a newly heat stressed city like Delhi in India.[v]
• In sub-Saharan Africa 1.5 degrees warming by the 2030s could lead to about 40 percent of present maize cropping areas being no longer suitable for current cultivars, and significant negative impacts on sorghum suitability are projected. Under warming of less than 2 degrees by the 2050s, total crop production could be reduced by 10 percent.[vi]
• At 2 degrees of warming heat extremes never experienced before could affect 15 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s land area in the hot season,[vii] causing deaths and threatening farmers’ ability to grow crops.
• If global temperature rises by more than 2 degrees by the end of the century, by 2050 this could see daytime temperatures in North Africa (and the Middle East) rise to 46 degrees on the hottest days, which can be deadly.[viii]

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[i] Africa remains the continent with the highest Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU), affecting almost 21 percent of the population (more than 256 million people). FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (2018) The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018. Building climate resilience for food security and nutrition. Rome, FAO. http://www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf  
[ii] BBC Online 14 July 2018, Five places that have just broken heat records https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44779367 

[iii] Carty T. (2017) A Climate in Crisis: How climate change is making drought and humanitarian disaster worse in East Africa. Oxfam media brief https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/climate-crisis  

[iv] Schleussner, C.-F. et al. (2016) Differential climate impacts for policy-relevant limits to global warming: the case of 1.5 °C and 2 °C, Earth System Dynamics 7, 327-351, page 337 https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-327-2016

[v] Tom K. R. et al. (2017) Communicating the deadly consequences of global warming for human heat stress, PNAS April 11, 2017 114 (15) p3861-3866, Page 3863 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617526114   

[vi] World Bank (2013) Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience, page XVIII https://bit.ly/1aplL4R  

[vii] World Bank (2013) Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience, page XXVI https://bit.ly/1aplL4R

[viii] Lelieveld, J. et al (2016) Climatic Change, Volume 137, p245-260  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1665-6  

Find the Agri Handbook's climate change chapter here.