Kilograms per ha. arable land
Chapter 2: State and Trends
2.2.2
Land productivity
Despite having more than a quarter of the world’s arable land, Africa generates only 10 per cent of global agricultural output, and has the lowest agricultural yield per unit area of any region (NEPAD 2013; Jayaram et al. 2010). There is potential for Africa to increase its agricultural output since the region has 52 per cent of the world’s underutilized arable land (Chamberlin et al. 2014; Deininger et al. 2011), although most of this is concentrated in six countries. As can be noted in Figure 2.2.1, the current area of arable land in Africa is much lower than the potential of equivalent rain-fed arable land area.
Under current infrastructure conditions, production
technologies and farm productivity levels, much of Africa’s potentially available
cropland is either economically
unviable or out of reach for the majority of smallholder farmers (Chamberlain et al. 2014). Localized land pressure is common across Africa, with estimates showing that 21 per cent of the region’s rural population lives off 1 per cent of the region’s arable land (Jayne et al. 2014).
While access to land is the key factor for agricultural productivity in Africa, other factors such as access to finance and reliable water sources are also important. The fragmentation of farms is also a factor affecting farm productivity. Africa has 33 million family farms of less than 2 hectares, accounting for 80 per cent of farms, and only 3 per cent of farms are more than 10 hectares in size (Namubiru- Mwaura and Place 2013; NEPAD 2013). Headey and Jayne (2014) estimate that average farm sizes in land-constrained countries have shrunk by 30–40 per cent since the 1970s, and that average farm sizes for a number of African countries over the past 30 years have declined from about 2 hectares to 1.2 hectares. Much of the reduction in size of land holdings is a result of population growth, with approximately 122 million young people expected to enter the labour market between 2010 and 2020, half of them in rural areas (Jayne et al. 2014).
Fertilizer use, including organic manure, remains very low in Africa (Figure 2.2.2), and together with other technologies such as irrigation, agricultural productivity may be improved
(Headey and Jayne 2014). Proponents of fertilizer use argue that its use would significantly improve agricultural productivity, especially on the region’s poor soils.
However large scale blanket fertilizer application without assessing the soil needs produces negative results. Ethiopia has embarked on soil fertility mapping to determine the appropriate type of fertilizer for a particular soil type. This mitigates against the inappropriate use of fertilizer. The country has five fertilizer blending plants, and has conducted field demonstrations on more than 40 000 farmer’s plots to date (ESSP 2015)
Africa’s low agricultural productivity is partly a result of the low uptake of irrigation technology, despite many crop-producing areas receiving low amounts of rainfall or commonly experiencing mid-season droughts. At present, most agriculture is sustained through rainwater, with only 6 per cent of the total cultivated area in the region equipped for irrigation, compared to 33 per cent in Asia (Headey and Jayne 2014; You et al. 2011). Currently underexploited, irrigated cultivation has the potential to improve land-use efficiency and boost agricultural productivity by as much as 50 per cent. Given that the continent has large expanses of land where hunger and drought are prevalent, irrigation could be a critical factor in enhancing food security (Figure 2.2.3) (Burney et al. 2013).
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Figure 2.2.2: Total fertilizer consumption in Africa, 2002–2012
1 800 1 600 1 400 1 200
1 000 800
600 400 200 0
Source: FAO 2016
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
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