1. Demand and Supply Challenges to Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa
Cited from:
The Montpellier Panel, 2013, Sustainable Intensification:
A New Paradigm for African Agriculture, London
Demand Challenges Supply Challenges
• Over 200 million people, nearly 23%, of the African
population, are now classed as hungry.
• Despite declines up to 2007, hunger levels have been
rising 2% per year since then.
• 40% of children under the age of five in SSA are stunted
due to malnutrition.
• SSA has a population of around 875 million, with an average
annual growth rate of 2.5%.
• The population in SSA will almost double by 2050, to close to
two billion people.
• Between now and 2100 three out of every four people
added to the planet will live in SSA.
• 50% of the population will live in cities by 2030.
• Incomes are rising with GDP per capita in SSA expected to reach
$5,600 by 2060, and diets already beginning to change.
• On present trends, African food production systems will only be able
to meet 13% of the continent’s food needs by 2050.
• Nearly 3.3% of agricultural GDP in SSA is lost annually because of
soil and nutrient loss.
• Cereal yields have increased by over 200% in Asia and Latin
America but only by 90% in Africa, between 1961 and 2011.
• In SSA only 4% of cultivated land is irrigated.
• In SSA only about seven million ha of new land have been
brought into production between 2005 and 2010.
• Between 1991 and 2009 per capita arable land fell by about
76m2
per year.
• Under moderate climate change with no adaptation, total agricultural
production will reduce by 1.5% in 2050.
• More than 95 million ha of arable land, or 75% of the total in SSA,
has degraded or highly degraded soil, and farmers lose eight million
tons of soil nutrients each year, estimated to be worth $4 billion.