Agriculture's Critical Role in Africa
Facts and Terms from "Putting GM Technologies to Work: Public Research Pipelines in Selected African Countries," African Journal of Biotechnology, November 2004, by Idah Sithole-Niang, Professor, University of Zimbabwe;
Joel I. Cohen, IFPRI Senior Research Fellow; and Patricia Zambrano, IFPRI Research Analyst (unless other sources cited)
- In many developing countries, agriculture is the engine of economic growth, and agricultural growth is the cornerstone of poverty reduction. (World Bank website).
- Approximately sixty-five percent of Africans rely on agriculture as their primary source of livelihood. Small-scale farmers are responsible for more than ninety percent of Africa's agricultural production. (Ending Hunger in Africa: Prospects for the Small Farmer, IFPRI, 2004).
- In Africa, agriculture accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the continent's total gross domestic product (GDP), and almost 60 percent of its total export earnings. (Ending Hunger in Africa: Prospects for the Small Farmer, IFPRI, 2004).
- Increased agricultural productivity enables farmers to grow more food, which can translate into better diets and higher incomes. In Africa, estimates show that a 10 percent increase in the level of agricultural productivity is associated with a 7.2 percent reduction in poverty. (Agriculture, Food Security, Nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals, IFPRI, 2004).
- Currently, African countries spend on average only 0.85 percent of their agricultural GDP on research, a much lower figure than the 2.6 percent averaged by industrialized countries. (Ending Hunger in Africa: Only the Small Farmer Can Do It, IFPRI, 2002).