Abstract
The most intractable food problem facing the world in the 1980s is the food and hunger crisis in the 45 states in sub-Saharan Africa — the poorest part of the world.2 Although the crisis follows by less than a decade the prolonged drought of the early 1970s in the Sahelian states of West Africa, weather is not the main cause of the current dilemma.3 Nor is the chief problem imminent famine, mass starvation, or the feeding and resettling of refugees. Improved international disaster assistance programmes can avert mass starvation and famine and assist with refugee resettlement. Rather, Africa’s current food crisis is long-term in nature, and it has been building up for two decades; blanketing the entire subcontinent are its two interrelated components — a food production gap and hunger. The food production gap results from an alarming deterioration in food production in the face of a steady increase in the rate of growth of population over the past two decades. The hunger and malnutrition problem is caused by poverty: even in areas where per capita food production is not declining, the poor do not have the income or resources to cope with hunger and malnutrition.
This chapter has been revised from an article which appeared in Foreign Affairs, vol. 61 (Fall 1982) no. 1. It is excerpted and adapted by permission of Foreign Affairs, Fall 1982. Copyright 1982 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
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Notes
The average aid flows in the eight Sahelian countries was about $50 per capita in 1982. United States Agency for International Development, Sahel Development Program: Annual Report to the Congress, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982) p. 5. Kenya received $450 million of the foreign assistance in 1982, or about $25 per person.
For more information see H. Ruthenberg, Farming Systems in the Tropics, (Oxford University Press, 1980); and
Carl K. Eicher and Doyle C. Baker, Research on Agricultural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical Survey, International Development Paper No. 1 (East Lansing: Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural Economics, 1982).
Malcolm Blackie, ‘A Time to Listen: A Perspective on Agricultural Policy in Zimbabwe’, Working Paper 5/81, Mimeo (Harare: University of Zimbabwe Department of Land Management, 1981).
William O. Jones, ‘Economic Man in Africa’, Food Research Institute Studies, vol. 1 (1960) pp. 107–34.
John Cohen, ‘Land Tenure and Rural Development in Africa’, in R. H. Bates and M. F. Lofchie (eds), Agricultural Development in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 349–400.
Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, Regional Food Plan for Africa (Rome: 1978).
The USDA figures on per capita food production trends in Africa over the past two decades should be treated as rough estimates because population and production data for two of the large countries — Nigeria and Ethiopia — are open to question. Since Nigeria and Ethiopia together have about one-third the population of Africa, data distortions in these countries could affect the overall averages for Africa. United States Department of Agriculture, Food Problems and Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa, (Washington, DC: 1981).
Republic of Kenya, Sessional Paper No. 4 of 1981 on National Food Policy (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1981).
John W. Mellor, ‘Food Price Policy and Income Distribution in Low Income Countries’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 27 (October 1978) no. 1, pp. 1–26 reprinted in Carl K. Eicher and John M. Staatz (eds), Agricultural Development in the Third World (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984) Chapter 10.
P. T. Bauer, Equality, The Third World and Economic Delusion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981) p. 70.
See, respectively, J. J. McKelvey, Jr, ‘Agricultural Research’ in R. A. Lystad (ed.), The African World (New York: Praeger, 1965); and
B. F. Johnston, ‘The Choice of Measures for Increasing Agricultural Produc-tivity: A Survey of Possibilities in East Africa’, Tropical Agriculture, vol. 40 (1964) no. 2, pp. 91–113.
R. E. Evenson, ‘Benefits and Obstacles to Appropriate Agricultural Technology’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 458 (1981) pp. 54–67, reprinted in Eicher and Staatz (eds), Agricultural Development in the Third World, Chapter 24.
Albert O. Hirschman, ‘The Rise and Decline of Development Economics’ in Essays in Trespassing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
D. Byerlee, C. K. Eicher, C. Liedholm and D. Spencer, ‘Employment-Output Conflicts, Factor Price Distortions and Choice of Technique: Empirical Results for Sierra Leone’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 31 (1983) no. 2, pp. 315–36.
For an assessment of the modernisation, dependency, and political economy models see Crawford Young, Ideology and Development in Africa (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); and
Colin Leys, ‘African Economic Development in Theory and Practice’, Daedalus, vol. 111 (1982) no. 2, pp. 99–124.
F. I. Nweke, ‘Direct Governmental Production in Agriculture in Ghana: Consequences for Food Production and Consumption, 1960–66 and 1967–75, Food Policy, vol. 3 (1978) no. 3, pp. 202–8; and
T. Killick, Development Economics in Action (New York: St Martins Press, 1978).
The sharp decline in real producer prices in the 1970s was undoubtedly an important contributor to the decline in output. Ellis reports a 35 per cent decline in the price and income terms of trade of peasant crop producers over the 1970–80 period. Frank Ellis, ‘Agricultural Price Policy in Tanzania’, World Development, vol. 10 (1982) no. 4, pp. 263–83.
Tanzania is slowly dismantling its state control over agriculture following the 1982 Task Force Report and pressure from donors. The new agricultural policy has reintroduced cooperatives, turned some government estates over to village cooperatives, and has encouraged foreign private investment in tea and sisal production. Tanzania, Ministry of Agriculture, Task Force on National Agricultural Policy, The Tanzania National Agricultural Policy (Final Report) (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1982); and
The Agricultural Policy of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1983).
G. K. Helleiner, ‘Smallholder Decision Making: Tropical African Evidence’, in L. G. Reynolds (ed.), Agriculture in Development Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) pp. 27–52.
Mulumba Kamuanga, ‘Farm Level Study of the Rice Production System at the Office du Niger in Mali: An Economic Analysis’, unpublished PhD dissertation (Michigan State University, 1982).
World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1981) p. 55.
D. W. Norman, The Farming Systems Approach: Relevancy for the Small Farmer, Rural Development Paper No. 5 (East Lansing: Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural Economics, 1980).
World Food Council of the United Nations, The African Food Problem and the Role of the International Agencies: Report of the Executive Director (Rome: 1982); and
Nairobi Conclusions and Recommendations of the African Ministers of Food and Agriculture at the World Food Council Regional Consultation for Africa (Nairobi: 1982).
Republic of Zimbabwe, Growth with Equity: An Economic Policy Statement (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1981).
F. S. Idachaba, Agricultural Research Policy in Nigeria, Research Report No. 17 (Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 1980);
G.O.I. Abalu, ‘Solving Africa’s Food Problem’, Food Policy, vol. 7, (1982) no. 3, pp. 247–56.
For example, US food aid to Mozambique was cut off for six months in 1981. See David Anderson, ‘America in Africa, 1981’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60 (1981) no. 3, pp. 658–85.
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© 1986 John Ravenhill
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Eicher, C.K. (1986). Facing Up to Africa’s Food Crisis. In: Ravenhill, J. (eds) Africa in Economic Crisis. Macmillan International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18371-5_7
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