For my conclusory post I've decided to take a brief look at the factors other than water that are playing a role in African food 'issues'. As mentioned previously there are a range of factors other than water (distribution, availability and access) that determine food security, or lack of it in Africa and thus it would be amiss if I did not mention a couple of these to put water's role into context.
This brief summary supports the argument I made in my initial post that factors other than water are of importance to food security across Africa. However I feel the research associated with these posts has given me an appreciation of the 'potential' of water. By this I mean whilst water may not be the sole, or most pressing issue for food production in a certain situation increasing access to water and making steps to allow for better irrigation could go a long way to increasing yields and reducing vulnerability in a climatic and economically unpredictable situation.
Firstly it is important to appreciate the importance of economics. As most of my posts have been focussing on agriculture they have been looking at the ability to produce food. However clearly there is also the question of access the ability to purchase food. A study in Senegal found that half of respondents had lacked the money needed to buy food at least once in the previous year, thus firmly linking issues of food to issues of poverty (Hathie et al, 2017). This issue is worsened by poor road networks in the main food producing regions of the nation (the south and the east) limiting accessibility of food, particularly in the rainy season and thus driving up the price (Hathie et al, 2017). This issue has effected a range of industries other than agriculture and so there is a drive to improve road infrastructure (discussed in the video below).
As well as these regional economic obstacles international economic policies can have large impacts on food security and production within African nations. Africa imports 20 billion dollars worth of food from the European Union per year, many of which are produced with subsidies and exported to African nations free of tariffs (DPA, 2017). This means that in many cases imported food is cheaper than more locally grown produce, thus lowering profits for local farmers and potentially driving them out of the market, thus forcing further reliance on imports and leading to greater exposure to international food price shocks (DPA, 2017). Tariffs also often disadvantage African exports, many 'western' nations utilise escalation tariffs, meaning that processed goods are taxed at a higher rate than raw goods (Taylor, 2015). This encourages African producers of products such as cocoa to export it raw for a relatively low value and allows the major profits from processing to be made in areas such as Europe and the United States rather than the money going to farmers. In turn this limits the extent to which African agricultural industries such industries can develop as they are getting such a small percentage of the money (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, 2015; DPA, 2017). Thus for African agriculture to be allowed to fully develop and nations to progress in terms of food security and economic gains international reforms leading to equitable tariff regulations seems to be needed.
As mentioned in my first post ongoing or recent conflicts have been highly damaging to food production. This is due to the fact that conflict forces farmers off of their land and damages infrastructure for transport and processing but also due to the use of food as a weapon of conflict (Messer and Cohen, 2004). If this is of interest to you I encourage you to watch the video included in my introductory post. However there is added complexity related to the extent food security has been a result of violent conflict and to what extent it is a cause in individual cases, for example work in the Horn of Africa seems to show that scarce resources combined with a rapidly growing population has caused many of the regions conflicts (Markakis, 1998). Whilst in Angola it is widely agreed that current food insecurity is due to the damage to infrastructure and the mass movement of populations caused by thirty year conflict (Bowen and Steinberg, 2013)
As well as these regional economic obstacles international economic policies can have large impacts on food security and production within African nations. Africa imports 20 billion dollars worth of food from the European Union per year, many of which are produced with subsidies and exported to African nations free of tariffs (DPA, 2017). This means that in many cases imported food is cheaper than more locally grown produce, thus lowering profits for local farmers and potentially driving them out of the market, thus forcing further reliance on imports and leading to greater exposure to international food price shocks (DPA, 2017). Tariffs also often disadvantage African exports, many 'western' nations utilise escalation tariffs, meaning that processed goods are taxed at a higher rate than raw goods (Taylor, 2015). This encourages African producers of products such as cocoa to export it raw for a relatively low value and allows the major profits from processing to be made in areas such as Europe and the United States rather than the money going to farmers. In turn this limits the extent to which African agricultural industries such industries can develop as they are getting such a small percentage of the money (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, 2015; DPA, 2017). Thus for African agriculture to be allowed to fully develop and nations to progress in terms of food security and economic gains international reforms leading to equitable tariff regulations seems to be needed.
As mentioned in my first post ongoing or recent conflicts have been highly damaging to food production. This is due to the fact that conflict forces farmers off of their land and damages infrastructure for transport and processing but also due to the use of food as a weapon of conflict (Messer and Cohen, 2004). If this is of interest to you I encourage you to watch the video included in my introductory post. However there is added complexity related to the extent food security has been a result of violent conflict and to what extent it is a cause in individual cases, for example work in the Horn of Africa seems to show that scarce resources combined with a rapidly growing population has caused many of the regions conflicts (Markakis, 1998). Whilst in Angola it is widely agreed that current food insecurity is due to the damage to infrastructure and the mass movement of populations caused by thirty year conflict (Bowen and Steinberg, 2013)
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| Food insecurity in conflict areas. Messer and Cohen, 2004 |
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