Africa’s food import bill to reach $110bn by 2025- IITA

The Institute of International Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has said that Africa’s food import bill will reach $110 billion by 2025, if the continent continues to pay lip service to agriculture.

Nteranya Sanginga, director general, IITA disclosed this last week Friday during the 2016 Partnership for Development Week (P4D Week) in Ibadan while addressing researchers and members of the board of trustees.

“There are negative consequences if Africa continued to pay lip service to agriculture, and fail to invest in the sector,” Sanginga said in a press statement made available to BusinessDay.

Sanginga sated the neglect of agriculture would cost $110billion in terms of food imports by 2025 to feed Africans up from the current $35 billion.

He noted that failure to invest in sector would deprive the continent of necessary jobs and further fuel the spiralling rate of unemployment among the youth on the continent.

The director general acknowledged that though some African governments have come to the realisation that agriculture was one of the ways to save the continent from the mess, most countries were not investing enough in the sector.

“Take for instance, the commitment to invest at least 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture. Not many countries are meeting this goal,” Sanginga said.

He commended the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the new initiative; Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), which is focused on transforming the continent’s agriculture.

Through the TAAT program, the bank aims to invest more than $800 million to the agricultural sector. The funds would be channelled into up scaling of proven innovations that will improve the fortunes of farmers and address the twin problem of food insecurity and unemployment.

Sanginga also reiterated IITA’s commitment to supporting African smallholder farmers in the context of agribusiness such that agriculture transcends food for the fork to money in the pocket.

According to him, IITA will continue to respond to the needs of Africa by developing innovations that will provide answers to Africa’s food insecurity.

To this end, IITA will be demonstrating its scientific leadership not only in terms of qualitative research in the lab, but also impact in farmers’ fields.

He called on researchers to redouble their efforts and commitment to the ideas, mission and vision of the Institute which includes lifting out of poverty 11 million Africans and the reclamation of 7.5 million hectares of degraded land and putting them into sustainable use.

 

Josephine Okojie