Challenges And Opportunities In Agriculture In Africa

Some thoughts on unlocking the potential of the agriculture sector in Africa.

This month I thought I would turn to the agriculture sector in Africa. This came off the back of my colleague, Jeremy Cape, and I travelling to Kyiv, Ukraine (yes Kyiv) to talk to some Ukrainian clients who want to access the African agriculture market.

Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe. And, as the plane descends into Kyiv airport, you can see vast expanses of cultivated farmland with closely packed crops. This is a very different view to what you get when flying over most African agricultural land, where the cultivation levels are low and fields look a lot less dense. (By the way, if any reader in West Africa is interested in importing chicken from the Ukraine, I know a man who needs a local agent/partner.)

Some of the content below is based on presentations given to the Ukraine Agriculture Forum and a round table discussion at our Kyiv office.

Live Aid was 30 years ago

13 July, 2015 will be the 30th anniversary of Live Aid. (I will do some reminiscing with some friends on that day - seems like a lifetime ago.) For those of you too young to know/remember, Live Aid was a seminal dual-venue (London and Philadelphia) concert held on 13 July 1985. It was organised by Bob Geldof (of the Boomtown Rats - best known for their hit single "I don't like Mondays") and Midge Ure (of Ultravox - remember "Vienna"?) to raise funds in aid of the Ethiopian famine.

The images of millions of people starving in Ethiopia that were the catalyst for that concert are etched on my brain. The concert itself was fantastic (to an avid music lover) and one of my great regrets was that I watched it on TV in my living room in Kuala Lumpur instead of being there live at the Wembley or the Kennedy Stadium.

Ethiopia has come a long way since then with the IMF ranking Ethiopia as among the five fastest-growing economies in the world - with average GDP growth rate of more than 10 per cent per annum with a 10.3 per cent growth rate in 2013/14.

Food - the crisis today

Whilst Ethiopia is no longer faced with famine, the number of African countries facing severe food shortages has doubled over the past two decades. The United Nations reports that the factors that have contributed to this include extreme weather conditions, natural disasters and insurgencies.

According to the UN, as many as 24 countries are contending with food crises across sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 240 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, or one person in every four, lack adequate food for a healthy and active life. And record food prices and...