Sustainable Societies Africa

Agriculture

Agricultural productivity in Africa is disastrously low by world standards. The Green Revolution in Asia combined irrigation and fertilizer to rapidly increase agricultural production and decrease the workforce involved in agriculture. A parallel revolution has yet to occur in Africa, where lack of water resources and investments means that barely 6% of cultivated land is irrigated and inputs and research are generally lacking. The problem is made worse because of competition from subsidized food coming from outside Africa and from poor road infrastructure on the continent which makes moving agricultural produce from field to market difficult.