Successes in African agriculture: results of an expert survey

Using primary data from a survey of expert opinion, this paper identifies key successes emerging in African agriculture. Among these, major commodity-specific successes identified include breakthroughs in maize breeding across Africa, sustained gains in cassava breeding and successful combat of its disease and pests, control of the rinderpest livestock disease, booming horticultural and flower exports in East and Southern Africa and increased cotton production and exports in West Africa. Using a dynamic analytical framework, the paper attempts to identify key ingredients that appear necessary for building on these individual cases and expanding them into broad-based agricultural growth.Insights for the dynamics of successful change include:Private actors farmers and trading firms are central to the process of change. Changes in the internal asset base of private actors and in the external environment are equally important. From the multiplicity of responses, one can conclude that neither type of intervention is sufficient in isolation. Thus, farmers cannot benefit from improved market opportunities if they do not have the means to access knowledge about improved practices, or seeds, or other inputs. Conversely, farmers cannot benefit from greater resources for production without injections of technology and outlets for their surplus. The role of the public sector, as well as that of civil society and collective actors, in influencing the changes in both internal and external environments is critically important.Science-based technology, particularly productivity-enhancing, is a key driver of Africa.s agricultural growth. Certainly the success stories reviewed here overwhelmingly point to improved technology as the lynchpin of increased farm production and incomes. For this reason, recent declines in the funding for agricultural research by both African governments and donors threaten to stall agricultural advance. These success stories highlight the highly dynamic environment within which farmers, traders and agricultural policy makers operate. Rapidly mutating diseases, ever-adapting pests, climatic shocks, changing world market conditions and policy environments all contribute to continuously evolving pulsations, surges and shocks to Africa’s agricultural systems.These insights suggest that, where there is participation and individual motivation, where incentives are aligned with improved means to respond to incentives, and where technology plays a pivotal role, success may follow.