By African Renewal
An African woman with hoe in hand is the default symbol of agriculture in Africa, according to the late Calestous Juma, African academic and former Harvard Kennedy School professor. Mr. Juma used that image to convey the drudgery-filled farming that women on the continent face.
Women grow 70% of Africa’s food on smallholder farms, a task anchored by physical labor.
Now, with Africa’s population expected to double by 2050, the continent must ditch the hoe in favor of modern technology, which will complete the same tasks far more efficiently.
A transformation from small-scale subsistence farms to mechanized, more commercially viable farms is essential, say experts at the Ghana-based African Centre for Economic Transformation.
Currently, mechanization levels on farms across Africa are very low, with the number of tractors in sub-Saharan Africa ranging from 1.3 per square kilometre in Rwanda to 43 per square kilometre in South Africa, compared with 128 per square kilometre in India and 116 per square kilometre in Brazil.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a UN specialized agency that champions efforts to defeat hunger, Africa overall has less than two tractors per 1,000 hectares of cropland. There are 10 tractors per 1,000 hectares in South Asia and Latin America.
Without mechanized agriculture, productivity suffers drastically, lowering farmers’ earnings, notes the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, an organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations that seeks to promote agricultural transformation and improve food security in Africa.
Africa currently spends a whopping $35 billion annually on food imports, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB), which projects that if the current trend continues, food imports could rise to $110 billion by 2050. Africa should be the breadbasket of the world, says AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina. Read more>>
