This is a 15 minute video clip of an animated presentation which explains the background to the crisis in rural Africa. [It does not have sound. Press the space bar to stop and start the video.]
Approximately 60% of the people of Sub-Saharan Africa subsist on rain-fed agriculture in the vast forgotten rural hinterlands of the continent. Rain-fed agriculture fails frequently, trapping the invisible 60% in endless deprivation and hardship. Whilst the proportion of people living in rural areas is decreasing with urban drift, the actual size of rural populations continues to increase.
Invisible economics
The Invisible 60% are generally not counted as part of the economies of the countries of the continent or are at best regarded as a net drain on the economy. Out-of-sight and out-of-mind, they are left to fend for themselves with minimum allocations of public expenditure until crisis point is reached, until all their coping strategies are exhausted, until they are further impoverished and they need to be fed. Food imports cost sub-Saharan Africa 35-42 $ Billion per year. This is part of the cost of doing nothing – for decade upon decade.
Invisible failures
The region is strewn with the remains of countless rural development projects built by communities, NGO’s, development agencies and others. Pitifully few survive to benefit communities in the long term. This is not the fault of those who have tried, with the best of intentions, to reverse the trend – it is because sustaining benefits is almost impossible in a vacuum of political will, resulting in minimal public expenditure (on basic infrastructure, agricultural support, training, access to markets etc.) and cynical policies which enrich the few.
Invisible consequences
The consequences are vast and incalculable. No economy can flourish whilst 60% of its citizens are trapped in poverty and recurrent crisis that saps national wealth, denies countries of the inputs of over half of their human capital and perpetuates reliance on foreign aid. Poor farming and land-use methods, coupled with the lack of rural public investments and recurrent droughts result in low yields and crop failure, perpetuating poverty, splitting families through the necessity of economic migration, and exacerbating urban fringe poverty.
The impossible dream
The approach of some is to declare that subsistence itself is the problem and advocate instead for the wholesale graduation of the rural population into small and large-scale commercial agriculture. Whilst this may be laudable in its intent and may be the ultimate goal, it offers no hope to the current 60% (and probably the next 2 or 3 generations) in whom little or nothing is being invested. It is a ‘leap-frog’ policy of high profile, flagship programmes that will benefit a small proportion of the 60% rather than engage with the real problems of progressively strengthening the resilience of the 60% to fend for themselves and increasingly become active contributors to the economy.
Dreams of vast commercial irrigation-based agriculture across Africa will never materialise – according to the FAO, only 5.5% of cultivatable land in Africa is irrigable due to water constraints, soils and topography. So rainfed farming is the only way Africa can feed itself.
It does not have to be like this
The invisible 60% could be prioritised. They could be put on the centre stage of development and growth strategies….. Supporting those who make up the majority of the population who are engaged in small-holder rainfed farming with targeted public expenditure in basic infrastructure, training, the promotion of conservation farming techniques and access to the agriculture value chain is not only the right thing to do ethically, it is also the bright thing to do economically (and possibly politically) as well. Investing in the ability of people to fend for themselves requires spending on assets that will produce recurrent benefits, year-after-year, rather than having to spend repeatedly on crisis, once-off interventions such as food imports. It is largely a matter of political will and it has been shown to work in many different parts of the developed and developing world over and again.