Dr Ikechi Agbugba from Nigeria has featured a number of times already on this platform. He stresses the importance of developing professional agriculture in Africa, especially since cheap oil and Covid-19 are laying bare the vulnerability of Nigeria's economy in particular and Africa's in general.
Yesterday the British newspaper The Guardian published an article that shows the impact of Covid-19 fallout on the Nigerian capital Lagos. This working-class Lagos community has been reeling from job losses, a collapse in informal services and rising food and transport costs. A lack of formal jobs and assured food security policy lay bare the lack of resilience of one of Africa's largest economies. According to the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in June, some 42% of Nigerians who depend on salaries for their livelihoods have lost their jobs during the pandemic. About 80% of households contacted for a survey reported lower incomes compared with last year. Already, 82 million Nigerians on a total population of 200 million live on less than $1 a day.
Dr Ikechi Agbugba
Dr Agbugba was educated at the University of Nigeria. He is a great networker and is on several international boards and networking organisations. He is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Agriculture & Applied Economics of the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, and is the Advisor for Africa Agriculture Sector Development of the Canada Africa Network – Africa Trade Action Group (CAN-ATAG). He is also a faculty member for Masters in Agribusiness Management as well as MBA programmes of the Rome Business School (Nigeria Campus) and a senior research fellow for the Africa Agriculture Agenda. He received the ‘Agro-Economist of the Year’ award in the 2017 Conference of the Pan African Agricultural Journalists (PAAJ). His energy is geared towards contributing to the on-going transformation of rural communities and agro systems with the aim of reducing poverty and ensuring food security.
After I had read about Dr Agbugba's views for the first time here, I decided we should be in touch. Since then we've been on the phone and ZOOM several times. Two weeks ago, the young American Jared Lefkort reported on a seminar featuring my now dear friend Ikechi. That was a reason for me to push one step ahead and ask Dr Agbugba why Africans traditionally look down on being a farmer and what can to be done to overcome a deeply rooted cultural issue.
The short answer is: by making agriculture part of a real commercial food business system and turning the pandemic into an opportunity to do so. The longer answer? Africans tend to see farming as a subsistence activity, rather than a business. Listen in and join the discussion with Ikechi and - I hope - Africans and non-Africans in the comments. I hope that especially Europeans will join, for I guess that stress on Africa's economies will threaten the northern Mediterranean shores worse than has been the case in the past ten years. Migration and misery will result from the current situation, unless we do our utter best to help develop not only agricultural production in Africa, but also an agrifood business system and trade that makes a profit in proudly African owned processing as well.
Dr Ikechi Agbugba
Dr Agbugba was educated at the University of Nigeria. He is a great networker and is on several international boards and networking organisations. He is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Agriculture & Applied Economics of the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, and is the Advisor for Africa Agriculture Sector Development of the Canada Africa Network – Africa Trade Action Group (CAN-ATAG). He is also a faculty member for Masters in Agribusiness Management as well as MBA programmes of the Rome Business School (Nigeria Campus) and a senior research fellow for the Africa Agriculture Agenda. He received the ‘Agro-Economist of the Year’ award in the 2017 Conference of the Pan African Agricultural Journalists (PAAJ). His energy is geared towards contributing to the on-going transformation of rural communities and agro systems with the aim of reducing poverty and ensuring food security.
...I asked Dr Agbugba why Africans traditionally look down on being a farmer and what can to be done to overcome a deeply rooted cultural issueNorthern Mediterranean shores
After I had read about Dr Agbugba's views for the first time here, I decided we should be in touch. Since then we've been on the phone and ZOOM several times. Two weeks ago, the young American Jared Lefkort reported on a seminar featuring my now dear friend Ikechi. That was a reason for me to push one step ahead and ask Dr Agbugba why Africans traditionally look down on being a farmer and what can to be done to overcome a deeply rooted cultural issue.
The short answer is: by making agriculture part of a real commercial food business system and turning the pandemic into an opportunity to do so. The longer answer? Africans tend to see farming as a subsistence activity, rather than a business. Listen in and join the discussion with Ikechi and - I hope - Africans and non-Africans in the comments. I hope that especially Europeans will join, for I guess that stress on Africa's economies will threaten the northern Mediterranean shores worse than has been the case in the past ten years. Migration and misery will result from the current situation, unless we do our utter best to help develop not only agricultural production in Africa, but also an agrifood business system and trade that makes a profit in proudly African owned processing as well.
African migration towards Europe, the role of agriculture and trade policy with regard to Africa have been an issue on the Dutch version of Foodlog for many years now. Unfortunately for our international audience our articles and interviews are available mainly in Dutch, with the exception of two books authored by two distinguished members of our community.
Former Wageningen researcher Dr Niek Koning wrote Food security, agricultural policies and economic growth on agricultural policies worldwide. He has a specific view on Africa from a European perspective: the EU should redo its Economic Partnership Agreements as they prevent Africa from developing a serious agribusiness industry and make it even more difficult to motivate young Africans to pick up the opportunity to become food producers and processors. Dick Veerman did an interview on the book with Niek Koning in April 2018 (in Dutch).
Dr Henk Breman - widely know in Wageningen as 'the Sahel Professor' - wrote From Fed by the World to Food Security (the link leads up to a free PDF version of the hard copy ISBN 978-94-6395-085-5). Henk Breman has dedicated his life to agronomy, soil fertility and women's rights in Africa, especially in French speaking Africa. His book is in English. Breman is extremely critical of white NGO backed agroecology ideologies that - in his opinion - will result in an even poorer Africa as he told Dick Veerman in a video interview in June 2018 (in Dutch).
Former Wageningen researcher Dr Niek Koning wrote Food security, agricultural policies and economic growth on agricultural policies worldwide. He has a specific view on Africa from a European perspective: the EU should redo its Economic Partnership Agreements as they prevent Africa from developing a serious agribusiness industry and make it even more difficult to motivate young Africans to pick up the opportunity to become food producers and processors. Dick Veerman did an interview on the book with Niek Koning in April 2018 (in Dutch).
Dr Henk Breman - widely know in Wageningen as 'the Sahel Professor' - wrote From Fed by the World to Food Security (the link leads up to a free PDF version of the hard copy ISBN 978-94-6395-085-5). Henk Breman has dedicated his life to agronomy, soil fertility and women's rights in Africa, especially in French speaking Africa. His book is in English. Breman is extremely critical of white NGO backed agroecology ideologies that - in his opinion - will result in an even poorer Africa as he told Dick Veerman in a video interview in June 2018 (in Dutch).
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A whole bunch of Africans have joined the discussion on LinkedIn.
Niek Koning and Henk Breman, I'm curious what you think of their comments.
A discussion such as the one between Ikechi Agbugba and Dick Veerman, and the reactions triggered on LinkedIn by Agbugba's statement that ‘Africa needs to develop both its agriculture and food processing industry’ create hope. They help accelerate agricultural development on the continent, a process that started in many countries 2 - 3 decades ago.
However, almost 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa don't show significant crop yield increase since 1960, while some of them have even lower yields that they had 60 years ago. I share many of Agbugba's suggestions and of those who reacted on LinkedIn. But more challenging than telling what should be done is the elaboration of practical idea's how to do it.
The mentioned book, "From Fed by the World to Food Security. Accelerating agricultural development in Africa", that I wrote with Tom Schut, uses the evolution of the cereal yield since 1960 to classify 49 of the African countries. Class one concern countries having at least since some decades an average national cereal yield growth known from a general use of green revolution tools: chemical fertilizers, improved seeds and crop protection products. It concerns an annual yield increase of at least 75 kg/ha of grain. Going from class 1 to class 6, the average annual yield growth decreases; the growth is negative for class 6 countries. Factors have been identified showing a positive or a negative correlation with the evolution of the average annual yield growth. For example, fertilizer use and food security decrease going from class 1 to class 6 countries, but corruption and state fragility increase. Based on it, actions for change have been identified and the required agricultural policy has been elaborated.
Green revolution tools improve both the productivity of land and labor, key conditions for developing a competitive agriculture. Combined with value chain development, with components such as input- and output market development, better roads and cheaper transport and the food processing industry, agricultural development will become the engine for socioeconomic development.
At least two reasons exists to choose a step by step approach. A key one is the availability of capital, the other the risk of increasing unemployment, while socioeconomic development views the opposite. It is therefore that agricultural intensification of family farming and small scale mechanization should be considered. Large scale mechanized industrial farming has too many negative side effects.
Henk, thank you for commenting from your broad and long experience in Africa!
#2
I totally agree with:
It is therefore that agricultural intensification of family farming and small scale mechanization should be considered. Large scale mechanized industrial farming has too many negative side effects.
I also believe in upscaling the 90% farmers who dig with a hoe than introducing huge farms with huge machines, that needs buying off land from other farmers on a large scale and dropping prices of crops in a certain area too much.
I have been doing this thing of small upscaling in the bakery business now for 6 years in Uganda. With BISS we have a system of Recruitment, Training, Micro credits, Follow-up to help people generate an income through baking. The loans are not in money form but a delivery of the (often hard to find) equipment.
I believe a similar system would perfectly work on a large scale for agriculture. I'd be happy to share ideas.
As Dr. Ikechi Agbugba rightfully said, Agriculture is seen as a poor man's business in Africa especially Ghana where I reside and this discourages most youth to venture in the agricultural sector.
This is because farming practices has not seen any repaid evolution for many decades, most farming still relies on rainwater for their farming activities and sometimes in some part of Ghana and Africa as a whole the rains comes once in a year. Which means the farmer will have to grow their crops only one season in a year and depend on that with their families until the rains come again the next year.
I think the way forward is education to the youth on integrated, sustainable agriculture and value addition, also innovative ideas to keep on the farms all year round even if they rely on the rains. #MAKING ATTRACTIVE TO THE YOUTH