New directions for African agriculture

Despite the fact that most of Africa’s poor are rural, and rely largely on agriculture for their livelihoods, African agriculture is slow-growing or stagnating, held back by low yields, poor infrastructure, environmental change, HIV and AIDS and civil conflict. However, this sweeping picture hides some important success stories. This short policy brief, based on an IDS Bulletin of the same name (see further information), asks why agriculture is contributing to poverty reduction in some places but not all. It highlights how social, cultural and political relations shape agricultural production, patterns of investment, the uptake of technologies and the functioning of agricultural markets.Among the questions posed are:what role can agriculture have in the challenge to reduce poverty by half by 2015?are any of the successes of African agriculture replicable across wider areas to benefit larger numbers of people?is achieving European Union import requirements realistic?are there other ways of thinking about agricultural trade options for Africa?do the new frameworks, targets, plans and programmes of international organisations offer anything new for African agriculture?how do we generate new thinking, rooted in African contexts and grounded realities, that makes a difference?how can new strategies and alliances in favour of Africa’s rural poor be brought about?The authors argue that new solutions for African agriculture will be successful only if they focus on understanding and influencing processes of innovation, intervention and policy, not just their technical content. Such an approach needs to be rooted in context-specific analysis, allowing for scenarios and options to be elaborated and debated by the multiple stakeholders involved in the future of African agriculture. [adapted from author]