During his speech about Africa’s priorities as a guest at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Centre on 22nd April 2022, the incumbent President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr. Akinwumi Adesina stated that Africa must be prepared for the inevitability of a global food crisis.
While responding to questions thrown to him from the hosts, the financial guru called for an increased sense of urgency amid what he described as a once-in-a-century convergence of global challenges for Africa.
According to Mr. Adesina, Africa’s most vulnerable countries had been hit hardest by conflict, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic, which had upended economic and development progress on the continent, opining that Africa with the lowest GDP growth rates had lost as many as 30 million jobs on account of the said pandemic.
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Speaking about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, Mr. Adesina expressed sympathy for the people of Ukraine, describing their suffering as unimaginable, saying the war’s ramifications spread far beyond Ukraine to other parts of the world, including Africa.
He also explained that Russia and Ukraine supply 30% of global wheat exports, the price of which has surged by almost 50% globally, reaching identical levels as during the 2008 global food crisis.
He added that fertilizer prices had tripled, and energy prices had increased, all fuelling inflation, therefore alerted that the rising costs or prices of food baskets could worsen in Africa in the coming months.
He noted that 90% of Russia’s $4 billion exports to Africa in 2020 was made up of wheat, and 48% of Ukraine’s near $3 billion exports to the continent was also made of wheat coupled with 31% of maize.
The AfDB boss cautioned that to fend off a food crisis, Africa must rapidly expand its food production, disclosing that “The African Development Bank is already active in mitigating the effects of a food crisis through the African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility – a dedicated facility being considered by the Bank to provide African countries with the resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertilizer.
Speaking further, he said “My basic principle is that Africa should not be begging. We must solve our own challenges ourselves without depending on others…”
The Bank chief spoke about early successes through the Bank’s innovative flagship initiative, Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme; a project operating across nine food commodities in more than 30 African countries.
Mr. Adesina informed that TAAT has helped to rapidly boost food production at high scale on the continent, including the production of wheat, rice and other cereal crops: “We are putting our money where our mouth is. We are producing more and more of our own food. Our Africa Emergency Food Production Plan will produce 38 million metric tons of food.”
He disclosed that TAAT had already delivered “heat-tolerant varieties of wheat to 1.8 million farmers in seven countries, increasing wheat production by over 1.4 million metric tons and a value of $291 million.”
According to Mr. Adesina, heat-tolerant varieties were now being planted across hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia and Sudan, with extraordinary results. In Ethiopia, where the government had put the TAAT programme to work in a 200,000-hectare lowland irrigated wheat programme, farmers are reporting yields of 4.5 to five times per hectare.
He equally notified that TAAT’s climate-smart seeds were also thriving in Sudan, which recorded its largest wheat harvest ever – 1.1 million tons of wheat – in the 2019-2020 season.
He added that TAAT came to the rescue during the drought in Southern Africa in 2018 and 2019, deploying heat-tolerant maize varieties which were cultivated by 5.2 million households on 841 thousand hectares.
As a result, he said, farmers survived the drought in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, allowing maize production to expand by 631,000 metric tons to a value of $107 million.
He also spoke about the urgent and timely need for a strong replenishment of the African Development Fund, the AfDB’s concessional lending arm that supports low-income African countries.
He disclosed that the Fund had connected 15.5 million people to electricity and supported 74 million people with improved agriculture; it had provided 50 million people with access to transport; built 8,700 kilometres of roads, and provided 42 million people with upgraded water and sanitation facilities.
The Bank Chief stated that there were three lessons to be learned for Africa from the challenges the continent is currently facing: first, that the continent could no longer leave the health security of its people to the benevolence of others; second, that it must look at health investments differently, and make the development of a health defence system a priority, investing in quality health infrastructure as a must; and third, that economies — which were already turning around — must create fiscal space to deal with debt challenges.
When asked about the outcomes for Africa of the Global Climate Summit (COP26) held in Glasgow in November 2021, Mr. Adesina strongly expressed optimism.
He however opined that it was important for developed countries to make good on their promises to provide Africa with the $100 billion annually required for climate adaptation.
“Our challenge is adaptation, because we didn’t cause the problem. In Africa, we are adapting to climate change”, disclosing that the AfDB together with its partner, the Global Centre for Adaptation, was mobilizing 25 billion dollars to support climate adaptation on the continent.
He further highlighted the importance of the technology sector as a driver for growth in Africa, and prospects for young people on the continent.
This ought to be an eye opener to countries like Nigeria that seem so docile in issues pertaining to research and innovations as regards agricultural development.
Nigeria should therefore borrow a leaf from countries within the continent and beyond that have already stepped up efforts in regard to tech-driven initiatives targeted to cushion the excruciating effects of the inevitable global food crisis as was pointed out by Mr. Adesina who has seen tomorrow owing to the current position he occupies.
Hence, concerned stakeholders must desist from sitting on the fence with a view to keying into the needed movement without further ado.