2020 Focus No. 12Much of the news concerning the state of agriculture in Africa is discouraging, but there are seeds of hope. Some exciting efforts of African farmers and researchers in the past decade or so have significantly raised agricultural productivity in certain countries and for certain products. These cases may serve as models for future efforts, but only if development policymakers and practitioners understand the processes that produced them and the key ingredients in their success.To give these episodes greater attention and to help disseminate the lessons they can teach, IFPRI and several partners initiated a project to identify and understand recent successes in African agriculture.
The culmination of this project was a December 2003 conference in Pretoria, South Africa, at which Capacity Building International, Germany (InWent), the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), IFPRI, and the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) assembled a group of agricultural specialists from government and the private sector, as well as representatives of ministries of finance and trade, from across Africa. In all, 70 distinguished practitioners and policymakers gathered to evaluate case studies of past successes, evaluate them in light of changing global and domestic conditions, and draw out the central lessons for improving agricultural performance in the future.
This series of briefs describes some of the main cases studied and the conclusions drawn. It is our hope that the findings presented here will serve as building blocks for a vibrant agricultural sector that will raise living standards for Africa's millions of poor farmers.
We are grateful to Peter Hazell, who provided overall guidance for the project on African successes, to Steven Haggblade, who compiled this series of briefs describing the important precedents for future successes in African agriculture, and to the contributors. Their work is crucial, for Africa cannot reduce poverty and eradicate food insecurity without a strong and growing agricultural sector.
Full Text of all Briefs
Individual Briefs in Focus 12:
- African Agriculture: Past Performance, Future Imperatives.Steven Haggblade, Peter Hazell, Ingrid Kirsten, and Richard Mkandawire
- Generalizing from Past SuccessesSteven Haggblade
- Recent Growth in African CassavaFelix Nweke, Steven Haggblade, and Ballard Zulu
- Maize Breeding in East and Southern Africa, 1900–2000Melinda Smale and T. S. Jayne
- Mali’s White Revolution: Smallholder CottonJames Tefft
- Smallholder Dairy in KenyaMargaret Ngigi
- Are Kenya’s Horticultural Exports a Replicable Success Story?Nicholas Minot and Margaret Ngigi
- Strategies for Sustainable Natural Resource ManagementSteven Franzel, Frank Place, Chris Reij, and Gelson Tembo
- The Changing Policy Environment Facing African AgricultureFrancis Chigunta, Ross Herbert, Michael Johnson, and Richard Mkandawire
- The Pretoria Statement on the Future of African Agriculture