Globally, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is the region with the highest rate of food insecurity,⁽²⁾ accounting for one out of every four undernourished people in the developing world.⁽³⁾ African countries’ historic struggle to adequately feed their people is not a new challenge, but in a world now characterised by globalisation, rapid urbanisation, and a dangerously warming climate, the nature of that challenge is quickly changing. Hunger is expected to intensify as demand for food increases due to the continent’s rapidly growing population, which is expected to double from the one billion inhabitants at the turn of the century to two billion by 2040.⁽⁴⁾ The consequences of climate change are likely to compound the situation, severely compromising food availability, limiting natural resource accessibility, and threatening agricultural productivity. Because of this, there is a pressing need to understand the current causes of undernourishment in SSA, and an even greater need to use this knowledge to strengthen food security policies and climate change adaptation measures in African countries.

This CAI paper considers what is needed to counter widespread undernourishment in SSA from a current perspective. First, the projected impacts of climate change on nutrition and agriculture are explored. Following this, the use of two different frameworks, food security and food sovereignty, as political platforms to promote adequate nutrition in the face of climate change and geopolitical threats are compared. Finally, implications for policy that adequately promotes climate change preparedness and tackles the hunger crisis are considered.

The effects of climate change on Africa’s agriculture and food production

The latest data and evidence regarding the impacts of a changing climate on Africa’s agricultural sector sheds light on the necessity of political action.⁽⁵⁾ Particularly relevant is the anticipated average temperature rise in SSA, which is expected to be greater than the global average.⁽⁶⁾ Rising temperatures imply adverse weather outcomes, changes in precipitation, increased extreme weather events, shortened growing seasons, and changes to the suitability of natural resources. While the demand for food increases as population swells, land and water will become increasingly limited across most of the continent,⁽⁷⁾ and rainfall is expected to decrease by 4% in the next few decades.⁽⁸⁾ Such adverse conditions increase the risk of crop failure and could decrease agricultural productivity by as much as 9% by 2060.⁽⁹⁾ Ultimately, once global temperature warming exceeds 3 degrees Celsius, all land where maize, millet and sorghum are currently cultivated will likely become unviable.⁽¹⁰⁾ Without adequate adaptation measures, one out of every two cultivated crop harvests could fail.⁽¹¹⁾

In an agricultural sector where all but 10% of the products produced come from small-scale farmers,⁽¹²⁾ where 95% of this agriculture relies on rain as the sole water source,⁽¹³⁾ and on a continent whose rapidly increasing number of urban dwellers rely on local markets for their main food supply,⁽¹⁴⁾ these changes in weather and precipitation could devastate the livelihoods of millions of rural farmers, exacerbate food shortage, and magnify food inaccessibility, particularly for the poor. Food prices can be expected to rise as a result of climate change,⁽¹⁵⁾ further intensifying inequality in food purchasing power and contributing to malnutrition. By 2050, the price of yams could rise by 26%, cassava by 20%, and wheat by 15%.⁽¹⁶⁾

The changes in climate that are projected from current trends imply decreased availability of food, limited access to food, higher purchasing price, greater dependency on food aid, and decreased agricultural productivity.⁽¹⁷⁾ The end result: production cannot meet demands. Both food security and food sovereignty are debated in the global health arena as two different means to tackle current and future food shortages on the African continent. One targets access to food; the other, control of food. In order to determine which of the two are more likely to prove the most effective outlet for sustainable change, the differences between the two frameworks must be explored.

Food security vs. food sovereignty - What is the difference?

Two proposed frameworks offer a platform from which to address SSA’s food shortage at the local, regional and global levels: food security and food sovereignty. Although in some ways the two concepts may seem quite similar, in reality they are remarkably separate.

Food security focuses on making nutritious food universally accessible. It suggests that all people should have enough access to food to safely avoid being malnourished.⁽¹⁸⁾ In practice, it necessitates making sure there is enough nutritious food available, guaranteeing that food is physically and economically accessible to those who need it, and ensuring it is utilised in a manner that will promote health.⁽¹⁹⁾ Food security seeks to work within the boundaries of the current global food system while seeking universal access to food, and in this manner it is much less radical than food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty, on the other hand, calls for a complete change in the system. It necessitates the undoing of the commoditisation of food and the re-democratisation of it. Namely, it seeks to claim “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.”⁽²⁰⁾ It opposes the current capitalist model of the food market and claims that this model promotes profit maximisation, making access to food not a right but a privilege granted only to those who can afford it.⁽²¹⁾

Because food sovereignty ascertains that those who eat the food should be able to shape the production and distribution of it in order to ensure their needs are adequately met, it calls for a shift in power from the hands of dominating governments and rich multinational corporations to the hands of communities and nations.⁽²²⁾ Here, ‘sovereignty’ insinuates that the way the current food system is set up is based on principles that ultimately result in food shortage for Africa’s communities and is controlled by a handful of powerful parties who are not primarily concerned with promoting health and granting equal access to food.

The associated interventions of food security focus not on reform but largely the advancement and introduction of biotechnology to increase agricultural productivity, and further research and development to help avoid food shortages in a warming climate.⁽²³⁾ Contrastingly, associated interventions of food sovereignty tend to focus on agrarian reform that gives farmers control over their land, the protection of natural resources and natural markets from the dumping of surplus commodities, establishing that food is first for nutrition and only secondly a good to be traded on the market, prohibiting the use of food to assert political control over a people, and the active involvement of farmers and food stakeholders in the creation of progressive, sustainable agricultural policies.⁽²⁴⁾

Because food security is the less radical of the two frameworks and the most practical from the point of view of international political acceptability, it has been given the most backing and support internationally, at least until recently. It is necessary to analyse whether the sole implementation of food security measures in SSA countries is likely to prove effective in avoiding hunger crises in the face of climate change threats.

Is food security enough to tackle SSA’s hunger?

Due to the anticipated impacts of warming global temperatures on natural resources and food production in SSA, ensuring enhanced agricultural productivity is a must if the continent is to avoid an even higher prevalence of hunger. Therefore, the introduction of technologies that are culturally and contextually appropriate to make food production more resilient across Africa needs to be considered, and the research needed to develop such technologies is imperative. On paper, these primary measures proposed to ensure food security, not food sovereignty, make sense. But they are not enough.

There are two major problems with the food security platform. The first is that its main interventions of technological advancement and research are largely being implemented in a way that undermines Africa’s own ability to feed itself and surrenders control of land, production, resources, and economies over to more powerful global actors. The second problem is that research and technology only address one small slice of the cycle that fuels hunger and malnourishment in SSA. Even when implemented progressively and sustainably, they leave much of the problem unaddressed.

Regarding the former, of great concern is that almost all of the research to enhance agricultural productivity in SSA is being conducted by the private sector.⁽²⁵⁾ This raises the question of whether companies that are profit-driven can be counted upon to seek the sustainability of African farmers and the productivity of local food markets that feed most of the continent over their own security and success. While these companies conduct research that are suspected to be largely tailored to meet their own needs and not those of the marginalised and vulnerable, public spending earmarked for the agricultural sector at the national and international level is limited. Overseas development assistance allocated to agricultural advancement in the region has declined to 3% from 18% in 1979, and only 4% of public spending in SSA countries is targeted for agricultural investment.  ⁽²⁶⁾   Also worrying is a emerging body of evidence that reveals that the technologies and programmes that have been implemented as a result of this research over the past decades are suspected to have contributed to the extent of environmental damage and heightened social vulnerability as well as facilitated the ability of non-African parties to seize greater control over the continent’s agricultural resources for their own purposes. ⁽²⁷⁾  

Currently, the privatisation and industrialisation of Africa’s agricultural sector is forcing Africa’s smallholder farmers, which produce the vast majority of the continent’s crops, to smaller and less productive plots of land while the resource-rich land is more and more controlled by a short list of multinational companies and institutions. ⁽²⁸⁾  Take, for example, the 22,230 acres of land acquired without cost by a private British firm in exchange for supporting the development of roads and schools in Tanzania, or the 3,000 hectares of communal land seized by another private company in a part of Ethiopia where 39% of the surrounding community is already dependent on food aid.⁽²⁹⁾ 

Even the intentions of the international programmes set up specifically to tackle these issues are under heated scrutiny. Information is being leaked that suggests that the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition Initiative, set up to promote agricultural productivity and alleviate poverty, is actually a smokescreen for a ‘new form of colonialism’ in Africa, seeking detrimental deals behind the scenes such as the allocation of 200,000 hectares of prime land in Malawi and 10,000 hectares in Ghana, both to be set aside specifically for commercial investors. ⁽³⁰⁾  Deals like this one, along with the introduction of more than 200 similar seed, law and tax policies, seem to contradict the mission of the programme, since they favour private corporations at the great expense of Africa’s farmers and target export markets for profit-making purposes instead of the needs of African people.⁽³¹⁾ 

Additionally, local markets are being strong-armed and stifled by international trade regulations that favour those with more money and less need, and imposes higher standardisation requirements that cannot be met locally under current circumstances.⁽³²⁾ This threatens local markets, makes it harder for rural farmers to produce and sell their goods, dictates a particular and limiting list of crops to be produced over others, and erodes the livelihoods of millions of farmers and urban sellers. As the trade market continues to liberalise, it benefits those who already have a competitive advantage and makes it remarkably difficult for the emerging markets of SSA countries to be economically successful.⁽³³⁾ It also allows for the excess goods of richer nations to be ‘dumped’ into African economies, sold at a price so cheap that local producers and distributors cannot compete. As stated in the Agriculture at a Crossroads report by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development, “the poorest developing countries are net losers under most (trade) liberalisation scenarios.”⁽³⁴⁾

The bottom line is that even if research and technology advancement were implemented across the continent in a manner that is tailored to meet the needs of African people and not profit-driven institutions and self-serving governments, there is much more that needs to be actively addressed in order to get to the root of the hunger conundrum. This is why focusing solely on food security is simply not enough, not if African countries are to adequately strengthen themselves against an unstable climate and unprecedented food demands. The heart of the issue is that the current global food system is set up not to help Africa meet these demands but to serve international corporate interests first and foremost. The problem is not that there is not enough food; the problem is that the international system does not allow for that food to feed the mouths most in need; and a large proportion of these mouths are in Africa. It is thus critical to tackle the inequitable and disproportionate sharing of power that results in unequal land use, food inaccessibility, natural resource allocation concentrated in the hands of super powers, and the lack of consideration for local farmers, the poor, and community needs.

Food security as an essential means to the end of SSA’s food shortage

On the ground, some projects are already working to enhance food security by ascertaining food sovereignty. The Ugandan Rural Development Training Program and the One Acre Fund are two examples of how agricultural productivity can be promoted in ways that benefit the community. Farmers who collaborated with the One Acre Fund found ways to increase their crop yields up to three-fold.⁽³⁵⁾

Since women make up nearly half of the agricultural workforce in SSA and account for 6 out of every 10 undernourished people on the continent,⁽³⁶⁾ it is vital to promote their access to information and resources that can enhance their livelihoods and in turn help to curb hunger on a larger scale. In fact, studies have suggested that if women had the same access to agricultural resources as their male counterparts in developing countries, they would be able to increase the productivity of their farms by up to 30%, which would raise overall agricultural production by 2.5-4%, further reducing the prevalence of global hunger by 12-17%.⁽³⁷⁾

Policies that increase SSA countries’ access to the trade market and that equalise international competition would likely be very beneficial, as would focusing on capacity building, infrastructure development, and regional collaboration that enhances continental trade.⁽³⁸⁾ Countries in Africa need the political wiggle room to increase their protection against volatile food prices, enhance their sustainability, and develop contextually appropriate and feasible methodologies to promote long-term agricultural productivity that will in turn promote public health and climate change preparedness. Above all, good governance and collaboration within African countries and between them is absolutely essential. Food sovereignty might seem radical, but radical solutions are often the only answer to problems created over decades of wayward policies, intensifying capitalism, and rapid globalisation.

Concluding remarks

Taking the food security approach to solving SSA’s hunger and food vulnerability might be the easiest path, but even when implemented sustainably, it leaves greater issues unaddressed. Regardless of its controversial nature and difficulty to implement, the evidence clearly highlights the need for a more honest reform of the global food system, from its production to its distribution, and the unequal international relationships that have contributed to Africa’s food shortage to date. In the end, food security cannot likely be fully achieved in African countries without also ensuring food sovereignty.

Perhaps what has been overlooked is that food security and food sovereignty are not two different approaches to tackling food shortage and hunger in Africa. Rather, one is the means to the end result of the other, and so they cannot be discussed as two separate ideologies to achieve the same end. In the modern globalised world and today’s warming climate, food sovereignty is a prerequisite for food security in Africa. If the current political and economic factors fuelling food shortage in Africa are not addressed in addition to the physical and technological ones, the growing number of those hungry and malnourished in Africa will be the result not only of climate change but also of the failure of African governments to collaborate and stand against the institutions and policies that are partly responsible for Africa’s food shortage.

Written by Rachel Rose Jackson ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1) Rachel Rose Jackson is a Research Associate with CAI and a healthcare professional whose work focuses on how systems can develop sustainably in ways that mitigate climate change consequences to health and the environment while promoting social equity. Contact Rachel through Consultancy Africa Intelligence’s Enviro Africa unit ( enviro.africa@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Liezl Stretton.
(2) ‘The state of food insecurity in the world’, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013, http://www.fao.org.
(3) Bals, C., Harmeling, S. and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org.
(4) Seiler, C., ‘Africa’s challenge in the 21st century - Food security’, 26 September 2013, http://www.resilience.org.
(5) See Bals, C., Harmeling, S. and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org, for more on some of the anticipated consequences.
(6) Ringler, C., et al., ‘Climate change impacts on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from comprehensive climate change modeling’, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2011, http://www.ifpri.org.
(7) Aerni, P., 2011. Food sovereignty and its discontents. ATDF Journal, 8(1/2), http://www.wti.org.
(8) Bals, C., Harmeling, S. and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Schaeffer, M., et al., ‘Africa’s adaptation gap technical report: Climate-change impacts, adaptation challenges, and costs for Africa’, United Nations Environment Programme, 2013, http://www.unep.org.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Aerni, P., 2011. Food sovereignty and its discontents. ATDF Journal, 8(1/2), http://www.wti.org.
(13) Mwaniki, A., ‘Achieving food security in Africa: Challenges and issues’, United Nations, http://www.un.org.
(14) ‘Facing Africa’s food security challenges’, CSIRO, 27 June 2012, http://www.csiro.au; Kibet, J., ‘Food security: An urban issue’, Urban Gateway, 27 December 2013, http://www.urbangateway.org; ‘African civil society organisations to counter corporatisation of African agriculture: Press release issued by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, 8th August 2013’, Food First, 9 August 2013, http://www.foodfirst.org.
(15) Ringler, C., et al., ‘Climate change impacts on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from comprehensive climate change modeling’, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2011, http://www.ifpri.org.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Bals, C., Harmeling, S. and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org.
(18) Mwendwa, A., ‘How climate shock may affect people prone to food shortages’, Urban Gateway, 18 February 2014, http://www.urbangateway.org.
(19) Bals, C., Harmeling, S., and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org.
(20) ‘Food sovereignty for Africa: A challenge at fingertips’, La Via Campesina, January 2008, http://viacampesina.net.
(21) Jacobs, R., ‘The radicalization of the struggles of the food sovereignty movement in Africa’, 2013, http://viacampesina.org.
(22) Patel, R., 2012. Food sovereignty: Power, gender, and the right to food. PLoS Medicine, 9(6), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
(23) Bals, C., Harmeling, S. and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org.
(24) Pimbert, M., et al., ‘Democratising agricultural research for food sovereignty in West Africa’, Institute for International Economic Development, 2010, http://pubs.iied.org; Patel, R., 2012. Food sovereignty: Power, gender, and the right to food. PLoS Medicine, 9:6, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; Shattuck, A. and Holt-Gimenez, E., 2010. Moving from food crisis to food sovereignty. Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, 13, http://www.law.yale.edu.
(25) Clapp, J., 2009. The global food crisis and international agricultural policy: Which way forward? Global Governance, 15.
(26) Ibid.
(27) ‘Africa’s food sovereignty under attack by corporate interests’, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, 18 August 2013, http://wdm.org.uk; How, H., ‘Fighting for food sovereignty in Africa,’ 18 August 2013, http://www.wdm.org.uk; Clapp, J., ‘The global food crisis and international agricultural policy: Which way forward?’, Global Governance 15, 2009; ‘African civil society organisations to counter corporatisation of African agriculture: Press release issued by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, 8th August 2013’, Food First, 9 August 2013, http://www.foodfirst.org.
(28) Bals, C., Harmeling, S., and Windfuhr, M., ‘Climate change, food security, and the right to adequate food’, Germanwatch, October 2008, http://germanwatch.org.
(29) Shattuck, A. and Holt-Gimenez, E., 2010. Moving from food crisis to food sovereignty. Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, http://www.law.yale.edu.
(30) Provost, C., Ford, L. and Tran, M., ‘G8 new alliance condemned as new wave of colonialism in Africa’, The Guardian, 18 February 2014, http://www.theguardian.com.
(31) Ibid.
(32) Patel, R., 2012. ‘Food sovereignty: Power, gender, and the right to food. PLoS Medicine, 9(6), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
(33) Mwaniki, A., ‘Achieving food security in Africa: Challenges and issues’, United Nations, http://www.un.org.
(34) ‘Agriculture at a crossroads’, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development, 2009, http://www.unep.org.
(35) Aerni, P., 2011. Food sovereignty and its discontents. ATDF Journal, 8(1/2), http://www.wti.org.
(36) Patel, R., 2012. Food sovereignty: Power, gender, and the right to food. PLoS Medicine, 9(6), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
(37) Ibid.
(38) Mwaniki, A., ‘Achieving food security in Africa: Challenges and issues’, United Nations, http://www.un.org.