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Page added on January 14, 2015
More Than Half of Africa’s Arable Land ‘Too Damaged’ for Food Production
A report published last month by the Montpellier Panel – an eminent group of agriculture, ecology and trade experts from Africa and Europe – says about 65 percent of Africa’s arable land is too damaged to sustain viable food production.
The report, “No Ordinary Matter: conserving, restoring and enhancing Africa’s soil“, notes that Africa suffers from the triple threat of land degradation, poor yields and a growing population.
The Montpellier Panel has recommended, among others, that African governments and donors invest in land and soil management, and create incentives particularly on secure land rights to encourage the care and adequate management of farm land. In addition, the report recommends increasing financial support for investment on sustainable land management.
The publication of the report comes with the U.N. declaration of 2015 as the International Year of Soils, a declaration the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) director general, Jose Graziano da Silva, said was important for “paving the road towards a real sustainable development for all and by all.”
According to the FAO, human pressure on the resource has left a third of all soils on which food production depends degraded worldwide.
Without new approaches to better managing soil health, the amount of arable and productive land available per person in 2050 will be a fourth of the level it was in 1960 as the FAO says it can take up to 1,000 years to form a centimetre of soil.
Soil expert and professor of agriculture at the Makerere University, Moses Tenywa tells IPS that African governments should do more to promote soil and water conservation, which is costly for farmers in terms of resources, labour, finances and inputs.
“Smallholder farmers usually lack the resources to effectively do soil and water conservation yet it is very important. Therefore, for small holder farmers to do it they must be motivated or incentivized and this can come through linkages to markets that bring in income or credit that enables them access inputs,” Tenywa says.
“Practicing climate smart agriculture in climate watersheds promotes soil health. This includes conservation agriculture, agro-forestry, diversification, mulching, and use of fertilizers in combination with rainwater harvesting.”
Before farmers received training on soil management methods, they applied fertilisers, for instance, without having their soils tested. Tenywa said now many smallholder farmers have been trained to diagnose their soils using a soil test kit and also to take their soils to laboratories for testing.
According to the Montpellier Panel report, an estimated 180 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are affected by land degradation, which costs about 68 billion dollars in economic losses as a result of damaged soils that prevent crop yields.
“The burdens caused by Africa’s damaged soils are disproportionately carried by the continent’s resource-poor farmers,” says the chair of the Montpellier Panel, Professor Sir Gordon Conway.
“Problems such as fragile land security and limited access to financial resources prompt these farmers to forgo better land management practices that would lead to long-term gains for soil health on the continent, in favour of more affordable or less labour-intensive uses of resources which inevitably exacerbate the issue.”
Soil health is critical to enhancing the productivity of Africa’s agriculture, a major source of employment and a huge contributor to GDP, says development expert and acting divisional manager in charge of Visioning & Knowledge management at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Wole Fatunbi.
“The use of simple and appropriate tools that suits the smallholders system and pocket should be explored while there is need for policy interventions including strict regulation on land use for agricultural purposes to reduce the spate of land degradation,” Fatunbi told IPS
He explained that 15 years ago he developed a set of technologies using vegetative material as green manure to substitute for fertiliser use in the Savannah of West Africa. The technology did not last because of the laborious process of collecting the material and burying it to make compost.
“If technologies do not immediately lead to more income or more food, farmers do not want them because no one will eat good soil,” said Fatunbi. “Soil fertility measures need to be wrapped in a user friendly packet. Compost can be packed as pellets with fortified mineral fertilisers for easy application.”
Fatunbi cites the land terrace system to manage soil erosion in the highlands of Uganda and Rwanda as a success story that made an impact because the systems were backed legislation. Also, the use of organic manure in the Savannah region through an agriculture system integrating livestock and crops has become a model for farmers to protect and promote soil health.
Meanwhile, a new report by U.S. researchers cites global warming as another impact on soil with devastating consequences.
According to the report “Climate Change and Security in Africa”, the continent is expected to see a rise in average temperature that will be higher than the global average. Annual rainfall is projected to decrease throughout most of the region, with a possible exception of eastern Africa.
“Less rain will have serious implications for sub-Saharan agriculture, 75 percent of which is rain-fed… Average predicated production losses by 2050 for African crops are: maize 22 percent, sorghum 17 percent, millet 17 percent, groundnut 18 percent, and cassava 8 percent.
“Hence, in the absence of major interventions in capacity enhancements and adaption measures, warming by as little as 1.5C threatens food production in Africa significantly.”
A truly disturbing picture of the problems of soil was painted by the National Geographic magazine in a recent edition.
“By 1991, an area bigger than the United States and Canada combined was lost to soil erosion—and it shows no signs of stopping,” wrote agroecologist Jerry Glover in the article “Our Good Earth.” In fact, says Glover, “native forests and vegetation are being cleared and converted to agricultural land at a rate greater than any other period in history.
“We still continue to harvest more nutrients than we replace in soil,” he says. If a country is extracting oil, people worry about what will happen if the oil runs out. But they don’t seem to worry about what will happen if we run out of soil.
Adds Rattan Lal, soil scientist: “Political stability, environmental quality, hunger, and poverty all have the same root. In the long run, the solution to each is restoring the most basic of all resources, the soil.”
22 Comments on "More Than Half of Africa’s Arable Land ‘Too Damaged’ for Food Production"
Davy on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 6:35 am
http://www.ipsnews.net/about-us/
This group reads as a fair and balanced. This is the first of have read of them.
We see a perfect storm awaiting Africa. There is nothing particularly different with the rest of the world and their soil. The developed world is facing fossil fuel depletion that will degrade its ability to produce food. Africa unfortunately is losing its resilience and sustainability of its old ways and subsistence agriculture to industrial agriculture practices and technology. Technology is not suited to Africa and can only hurt it in the long run by destroying a viable system. Sustainable agricultural practices are likewise difficult to implement when industrial agriculture has such a strong ability to out compete more sustainable practices in the short term.
What is scary in Africa is food production right now is hitting limits of growth and diminishing returns just as AGW effects and a population are ready to explode. We have social instability in Nigeria and MENA. We have Ebola. The mosaic of problems and ills are really a predicament of which the only answer is a much lower population. That looks unattainable at the moment until Nature kicks in. Expect a steady stream of bad news from Africa. There is nothing positive there with this underlying predicament bomb waiting to turn the continent into a failed region with catastrophic global results.
Ralph on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 6:59 am
A good early indicator is the numbers of migrants that risk death by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in rusting hulks only to be set adrift by their people trafficking owners, some whist locked on autopilot steaming straight to shore.
Thousands drown every year.
Most come from Africa, many now come Syria, which is another war which has exploded out of too many people and not enough food to go round.
If Ebola breaks out of Africa, it will be an illegal migrant, crossing into Italy, and going underground to avoid deportation, that spreads it in the European underclass.
Makati1 on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 7:39 am
When the hydrocarbon fertilizers end, much of the world is going to find out they are Africa.
ghung on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 8:39 am
“Africa suffers from the triple threat of land degradation, poor yields and a growing population.”
Africa suffers from the quadrupal threat of land degradation, poor yields, a growing population, and climate change/desertification.
Rodster on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 9:29 am
So much importance is put on making money, buying gold and silver or building wealth. And yet somewhere in the future the world will be faced with just being able to grow food or producing clean water.
In the future wars will be fought not for gold but for clean drinking water which is becoming more scarce by the day due to industrialization and fracking.
bobinget on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 11:09 am
It’s worse then you think.
http://stephenleahy.net/2012/05/17/wealthy-countries-and-investors-buying-up-farmland-in-poor-countries/
This trend actually began in Haiti around mid 20th century. Today, Haiti can’t feed itself. Only the threat
of mass migration to N.A. keeps poverty level subsistence rations coming.
Forget Africa, it’s South American farmland EVERYONE wants.
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/the-big-story/the-whole-world-wants-south-americas-farmland/
As sea levels rise, rainfall patterns change,
prime farm land will be worth more.
Erosion is more of a problem for indigenous populations then for Chinese or Saudi Investors.
Once farms are ‘used-up’ investors simply abandon
no longer viable land.
J-Gav on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 11:15 am
Good article. A fair portion of the remaining, relatively undamaged, soil in Africa lies on the Ghanaian Plateau, which, I’m sure you will be surprised to know, is presently in the process of being bought up or leased by European and Chinese companies.
noobtube on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 12:08 pm
More genocidal nonsense from American degenerates who love to piss on anything African, Arab, Russian, or not fitting their master race ideology.
As bad a shape as the United States has made for itself, you would think these “experts” would be using their “expertise” to fix their own backyards instead of worrying about someone else.
But, that is the nature of the American dirtbag. They are “experts” at fixing everyone else’s problems but their own.
Americans live in a fact-free zone.
HARM on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 12:15 pm
“…Once farms are ‘used-up’ investors simply abandon no longer viable land”
“A fair portion of the remaining, relatively undamaged, soil in Africa… is presently in the process of being bought up or leased by European and Chinese companies.”
The invisible hand of the ‘free market’ at work again, producing ‘optimum’ outcomes for everyone, of course.
ghung on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 12:35 pm
Noob, were’ve you been? I miss your totally senseless and comical contributions to the mindless discourse your species is so good at. Reinforces my doomer world view.
Perk Earl on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 1:18 pm
“In the future wars will be fought not for gold but for clean drinking water which is becoming more scarce by the day due to industrialization and fracking.”
Rodster, there was a Twilight Zone episode in which these 4 guys steal a bunch of gold, then put themselves into a suspended state of sleep in these cocoon type capsules, that are timed for something like a hundred years later. When they come to one of the cocoons had a leak and that guy is dehydrated bones and dust. They divide the gold equally among the remaining 3, then set out to find civilization on foot with only so much water. As the water dwindles they barter with each other for water trading gold bars. Later two die leaving all the gold to the 3rd person, who starts dropping gold to lighten his load, then after the water runs out dies of thirst. A futuristic car with a man and woman come upon this guy and the couple have a conversation in which the guy says, “Didn’t this stuff have a lot of value at one time before we found a way to manufacture it?”
Anyway, backing up your suggestion, the point being that at some point water is more important than even gold.
Rodster on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 2:28 pm
“Rodster, there was a Twilight Zone episode in which these 4 guys steal a bunch of gold”
The Twilight Zone was way ahead of it’s time, “Talking Tina” still gives me the creeps.
Perk Earl on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 3:56 pm
Yeah, just after Telly Savales dies after the doll causes him to slip going down the stairs, I liked the dismayed look on the wife’s face (because of course she didn’t buy into the idea of a vindictive doll) when it said to her, “I’m talking Tina and you better be nice to me.” Yikes!
A lot of those episodes caused the hair to stand up on my neck. There’s the one where the guy can change his face, then runs into some old guy he doesn’t recognize, but the old guy claims to be his father. When he won’t respond to him like a son should the father shoots him, then watches in shock as the guy’s face changes several times.
Definitely ahead of it’s time.
Apneaman on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 4:00 pm
Twilight Zone has never been equaled.
The Rip Van Winkle Caper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZxSon1FG5E
FriedrichKling on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 5:47 pm
Do we realize what this report means in terms of species extinctions? Is it any wonder the South Koreans signed a deal with the military junta in Madagascar to “develop” 90% of the country’s remain forests, which now only exist along a thin spin in the middle of the country.
Makes me sick.
FriedrichKling on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 5:49 pm
noobtube-
Why do you continue to read these news reports if according to you the information is wrong?
PrestonSturges on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 6:32 pm
Way to free associate!
Makati1 on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 6:42 pm
“Americans live in a fact-free zone.”
I like that, Noobtube. You do know that Americans are not allowed to own mirrors. That way they cannot see themselves as other see them.
Perk Earl on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 7:09 pm
Thanks for the link, Ap. I’ll watch it when I get back tonight.
Davy on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 7:42 pm
Damn, Makster one day you talk like you are going to mellow with your agenda then suddenly you are full bile. Is there something wrong with you? I try to be your friend then you stab me in the back. What a lousy friend.
FriedrichKling on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 8:52 pm
Davy-
We are Show Me state folk. You should have known better re. Makster……..
redpill on Wed, 14th Jan 2015 11:36 pm
Good stuff Makati1.
So, have you fully disavowed being from the U.S.?
When you cash those S.S. checks, do you think of us still in the states as chumps?