African Agricultural Futures: Opportunities, Challenges & Priorities

Siwa Msangi

Environment & Production Technology Division, IFPRI

In this presentation, I will…

Provide brief overview of the important drivers of change in African agriculture

Make an argument for future-oriented assessments and point to the kinds of studies that have been done

Show why they have not given an adequate treatment of African agriculture

Point to some key areas of uncertainty that remain about Africa’s agricultural future

Discuss some insights from Africa-focused studies and an expert assessment on foresight for Africa

Draw some final conclusions and recommendations

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Why do future studies for agriculture?

In the business world – foresight is used as a way of challenging assumptions about future growth potential

The future of agriculture will be shaped by uncertain driving forces of supply and demand

Focus on the most important drivers of change to see their influence under alternative trajectories

Helps in the process of planning and prioritizing investments that take a long time to have effect

To explore areas of uncertainty to better understand which might be the real ‘game changers’ in future

Important drivers of change in agriculture & food systems

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Key drivers of future agriculture

Short-term drivers (export bans, crop failures) lead to near-term ‘blips’ and market shocks that allow limited time for adjustment

More substantial changes in policies (shift in trade regime) take time to implement will exert effects w/in a longer time frame

The very slow-moving drivers (climate change & the impacts of ag R&D) will take much longer to be felt – and need a much longer-term perspective for analysis

Some drivers of change act on a short and fast time scale – while others act over a longer time period

Characterizing drivers of change

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The type of assessment varies by timescale

Short-term outlooks might consider outcomes over a year or two ahead (market intelligence)

Medium-term outlooks will consider a ‘baseline’ trend over 10-15 years under current policies and contrast that with alternative policy impacts (OECD-FAO, FAPRI, USDA outlooks)

Longer-term studies of 20-30 years look at effects of more gradual drivers of change w/in complex storylines of political-economic change (GEO-4, Millennium Assessment, IAASTD, IPCC)

Studies will differ according to whether they want to consider shorter- or longer-term forces of change

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What do these assessments say about Africa?

Since Africa’s share of global trade is relatively small – it tends to get highly aggregated (single region or part of RoW)

Coverage of data in SS Africa tends to be relatively poor compared to other regions

The underlying driving forces and production systems tend not to be well understood

The tremendous heterogeneity w/in SS Africa tends to get missed in these studies

Many of these global assessments tend to be rather coarse in their treatment of agriculture in SS Africa

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Key messages from IFPRI assessments

Reflects a steady growth in cereals consumption patterns – mostly as food (incl coarse grains like millet & sorghum which are feed elsewhere)

Lots of un-tapped potential for irrigation remains – requires more to come from rainfed production

Meat consumption also projected to grow steadily, although from lower per capita levels compared with other regions of the world

Calorie availability improves to 2030 and beyond (with acceleration after 2015) – overall reduction in malnutrition progress (but not as fast as in Asia)

IFPRI has undertaken more detailed medium- to long-term outlooks of African agriculture & its key drivers

Changing population – both size and composition

Total population growth (2000-2030)

Urbanization growth (2000-2030)

Food consumption growth to 2030

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Total cereals consumption

Total meat consumption

Production growth to 2030

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Cereals production

Meat production

Sources of cereal production growth to 2030

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Key sources of uncertainty in African Ag

The implications for urbanization and wider socio-economic growth on diets & demand

The effects that agribusiness & commercial interests will have on value chains & the rural sector (‘land grabs’, farm size trends)

How important will Africa’s internal trade be in future compared to exchange with RoW?

The impacts of climate change & incr variability on various regions of SS Africa

There are a number of key areas of uncertainty that need exploration in the future of African agriculture

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Exploration of African agricultural futures

Get a perspective of major issues driving change in Eastern, Southern & West Africa

Identify some common challenges faced in quantifying African agricultural futures in terms of data and methodology

In addition to the issues of urbanization, agribusiness and climate change• The importance of the informal sector• The needed ‘pull’ of non-agricultural sectors

Held a recent expert consultation to discuss some critical future drivers of change & their implications

Some insights from Southern Africa

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Consumption patterns

Consistent demand growth expected Growth in demand for potatoes (18%) and wheat-based

products (20%) -- while maize meal demand remains stagnant Demand for beef expected to grow at annual rate of 3% p.a.,

Resource use patterns

Resource constraints will continue to heavily revolve around land and water availability

Production patterns

Sources of increased production likely to come from intensification and not land expansion

Market environment

Close linkage b/w dynamics of commodity and energy markets Slowed domestic and global economic growth will keep SA rand

strong with very gradual depreciation in exchange rate Uncertainty will persist over policy environment with market

deregulation and changes in trade tariff regime

From BFAP 2012 Outlook

Important messages for AIFSC

There are gains to be made in improving ag performance in SS Africa – that ACIAR & partners can contribute towards• Low-hanging fruit remains in terms of closing yield gaps• Better market connections can help farmers to do this• More irrigation potential can be exploited but more will still

need to come from rainfed production Patterns of urbanization & socio-economic growth will

provide important sources of future demand Some of Africa’s best market potential in future will be within

its own borders and between neighbors – regional bodies (ECOWAS, COMESA, EAC) can help

Agribusiness (foreign & domestic) will continue to be an important player in shaping value chains w/in Africa

THANK YOU!