CHAPTER 3: FOOD SECURITY CONCEPTS
3.2 An overview of food security
There is a general realisation that food is a basic right and should be readily available to everyone. As a result, food has become one of the most consistently mentioned rights in international human rights. In spite of this, interest in food security has waxed and waned over time, particularly in relation to changes in the extent and nature of food problems worldwide.
The 1975 UN definition of food security reflected the thinking of the day, which focused on adequate production at the global and national level. This was also a conventional view of food
44
as a primary need. Food insecurity is, however, a matter of both limited food availability and restricted access to food. Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate in economics, is credited with initiating the paradigm shift in the early 1980s that brought focus to the issue of access and entitlement to food. Food insecurity was no longer seen simply as a failure of agriculture to produce sufficient food at the national level, but instead as a failure to guarantee access to sufficient food at the household level. Dreze and Sen (1989) argued that persistent hunger was not mere lack of affluence but of substantial and extreme inequalities. These inequalities were usually a manifestation of underlying factors such as changes in markets (pricing of food, agricultural inputs), government policies e.g. land reform policies, unemployment and household illness.
Social protection e.g. cash transfers, agricultural inputs, free food hand-outs, and work-for-food programmes are means to prevent deprivation and vulnerability.
The high contribution of the agricultural sector to GDP also underlines the limited diversification of most African economies. On average, agriculture contributes 15% of total GDP, however it ranges from below 3% in Botswana and South Africa to more than 50% in Chad, implying a diverse range of economic structures (Beintema and Stads, 2014). Agriculture employs more than half of the total labour force (IMF, 2012) and within the rural population, provides a livelihood for multitudes of small-scale producers. Smallholder farms constitute approximately 80% of all farms in SSA and employ about 175 million people directly (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, 2014). In many countries, women comprise at least half of the labour force (FAO, 2015).
The agricultural sector has a pivotal role in employment in SSA, employing more than half of the total workforce. While its importance to the rural population is well documented, recent surveys suggest that agriculture is also the primary source of livelihood for 10% to 25% of urban households (FAO, 2015). National census data indicates that the number of people employed primarily in agriculture has increased over time (Yeboah and Jayne, 2015). To improve upon past efforts to achieve food security in Africa, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) developed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which the African Union Assembly endorsed in 2003. The important role of the agricultural sector in contributing to food security is reflected in its prioritisation in the development agenda. CAADP was prioritised within the 2003 Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in which there were commitments to allocate at least 10% of national budgetary expenditure towards its implementation, and aimed to achieve a 6% annual
45
growth of the agricultural sector. Less than 20% of countries have achieved their commitment to agricultural spending. More recently, these commitments were reaffirmed in the Malabo declaration on accelerated agricultural growth, which pledged to end hunger in Africa by 2025.
Despite the prioritisation of the agricultural sector, FAO’s Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme noted an overall decreasing trend in the share of public resources channeled to agriculture in the ten countries reviewed in 2013 (FAO, 2014).
The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) is an integral part of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The programme is based on four pillars which are:
Extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems such as irrigation
Increasing market access through improved rural infrastructure and other trade related interventions
Increasing food supply and reducing hunger across the region by increasing smallholder farm productivity and improving responses to food emergency crises
Improving agricultural research, improving systems to disseminate appropriate new technologies and increasing support for farmers to adopt these.
The question, however, is always the extent to which these political commitments are translated into tangible results. To achieve the above, African governments, at the 2003 African Union meeting in Maputo, committed at least ten percent (10%) of their national budgets to agriculture within five years. Since its inauguration, CAADP has successfully guided country and regional actions designed to stimulate economic growth and reduce hunger and poverty through increased investment in agriculture. Africa as a whole, however, has not met the CAADP targets of raising annual agricultural growth by at least 6 percent and committing at least 10 percent of national budgets to agricultural development. A key driver to achieve these goals has been concluded to be an investment in agricultural research and development (R&D). This can be an especially effective tool to develop and adapt new technologies that enhance the quantity and quality of agricultural outputs, leading to greater food security (IFPRI, 2013). The NEPAD also announced that it had identified agriculture as a priority for sub-regional and regional approaches to development, and as an engine of growth in the improvement of people’s livelihoods in the rural areas. The NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development
46
Programme (CAADP), which sought to invest $240 billion by 2015 focuses on three priority areas where increased investments would help improve Africa’s agriculture, food security and trade balance. These are:
extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems;
improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for market access;
increasing food supply and reducing hunger.
Despite the expression of political will and commitment to attaining food security status for their citizens by African governments, to date, overall investment levels in most countries are still well below the levels required to sustain agricultural needs. In 2011, SSA as a whole invested $0.51 for every $100 of agricultural output on average, which is well below NEPAD’s 1 percent national investment target (IFPRI, 2014). The 2011 intensity was comparable to the value recorded in 2000 but considerably lower than values recorded in more recent years, which indicate that growth in agricultural spending, though substantial, has not kept pace over the past few years with growth in agricultural output. In 2011, just 10 of the 39 countries for which agricultural R&D intensity ratios were available met the 1 percent target. In contrast, 18 countries recorded intensity ratios lower than 0.5. IFPRI (2014) noted that despite these low figures, investment in Africa in agriculture as a whole was rising. A few countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda) have relatively high levels of investment in agriculture compared to other African countries.
Beintema and Stads (2014) noted that the slow progress towards food security was attributed to low productivity of agricultural resources, high population growth rates, political instability and civil strife. However, vast regional differences remain, and the success achieved in countries with stable political conditions, economic growth and expanding agricultural sectors suggests that appropriate governance systems, institutional capacities, and macroeconomic, structural and sectorial policies can work together to improve food security on a long-lasting and sustainable basis.
Public agricultural spending in the region increased by more than one-third in real terms between 2000 and 2011. About half of the spending occurred in just three countries: Kenya,
47
Nigeria, and South Africa. And close to half of the growth from 2000 to 2011 came from just two countries: Nigeria and Uganda.
Figure: 3.1: Public agricultural spending in Africa, south of the Sahara, 2000 and 2011
Adapted from IFPRI, 2014
The above figure shows the amount of expenditure on agriculture by different governments. It also shows that governments have largely not as yet met the 10% expenditure on agriculture under the CAADP commitments.