Growing green: the challenge of sustainable agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Agriculture is the dominant economic sector in most Sub-Saharan nations and Africans depend almost entirely on domestic production for their food, but agriculture has not performed well over the past two decades. This paper argues that poor government and donor policies have damaged agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) through limiting access to modern agricultural technologies and markets. It cites a variety of problems that it suggests have contributed to the under-performance of agriculture in most Sub-Saharan African countries, and then goes on to suggest possible solutions.Causes of agricultural under performance identified in the paper include:widespread price controls, parastatal monopolies and over staffed bureaucracies, which marginalised the private sector and created large fiscal deficitsa lack of political and economic freedom, and a lack of attention to agriculture by national leadersan overemphasis by governments on industrialisation and urbanisation, to the detriment of agricultural productionpunitive taxes on agricultural exports and artificially low prices for urban consumersinadequate government investment in rural transportation infrastructuretechnical assistance for the establishment of marketing boards and other mechanisms for the implicit taxation of agricultureexcessive aid expenditures on extension servicesa decline in the amount of aid allocated to agriculture, forestry and fisheriesgovernment regulation and barriers to trade, including food-price controls and currency overvaluationwidespread trade barriers between African countries.From this analysis, the paper concludes that the solution does not lie in regulation and trade protectionism. Instead, key solutions are:there is a need to increase the use of hybrid and genetically-modified seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, alongside improved methods in conservation tillage and water managementgovernments need to supply basic public goods and infrastructure, including the legal institutions required for property rights and enforcement of contracts to provide the basic framework for the market economydecentralised research and development is needed, as well as renewal of agricultural extension services, to ensure initiatives are client-oriented and demand-driven.