Africa's industrialisation through agricultural revolution shows mixed signals, says AU Commissioner
Windhoek, Namibia (PANA) – The industrialisation of Africa, through an agricultural revolution, premised on increased investment in agricultural productivity, has shown mixed signals decades later, the African Union Commissioner, Moses Vilakati has said.
In an interview, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Blue Economy, regretted the population growth in Africa was quicker than the rate at which the continent was ramping up its food productivity and key benchmarks towards enhanced productivity had fallen behind schedule.
“The African Union member states do not domesticate these declarations aimed at enhancing the productivity of agriculture yet we are expending resources and lots of scientific research on developing these benchmarks,” Vilakati told PANA in Windhoek.
The AU, sought to increase the rate of industrialisation in the continent, through a process centred around substantial spending on agricultural production.
The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), agreed in 2003, during a meeting in Kampala, Uganda, also known as the Kampala Declaration, sought a 6% government spending on agriculture to boost food production.
In 2014, African leaders, meeting in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, again, agreed to raise the agricultural spending to 10% of the total budget.
However, Vilakati said while the Malabo Declaration was hinged on 10% financing of the agriculture sector, the decision on the budget was not clear with finance ministers, currently lumping up infrastructure spending on agriculture.
It remains unclear whether a budget of US$200 billion should include US$20 billion on agriculture.
The AU Commissioner said ministers of finance, allocated funds for the construction of dams and roads as part of agriculture enablers.
However, critical investment, such as enhancing access to weather information which contributes generally to 60% of productive agriculture, including access to water as well as weather prediction, still lagged behind.
“The results from the implementation of the Malabo Commitment is a mixed bag. Countries have done well. But some are stagnant because of climate change. We still rely on the scientists to tell us about the weather, which is still the major determinant for food production because our agriculture is based on rain-fed agriculture,” Vilakati said.
The CAADP plan aims to increase attention on financing agriculture in order to accelerate economic growth. The idea also called for private financing and investment from banks to the agriculture sector at 30%.
African countries agreed the CAADP, would be country driven and owned, with regional economic blocs contributing substantially. The aim was to achieve 6% annual growth in agriculture.
However, over the years, results show countries have mostly lagged terribly behind, with an average in agriculture sector growth in recent years.
“The food security in Africa will be achieved. But the issue is when? We must match population growth when it comes to food security. We require self-introspection just like the first world has looked into what is required for climate information to be available to support agriculture,” the Commissioner said.
For African countries to begin making headway, the AU Commissioner stated, countries must immediately domesticate the Malabo Commitments, the Kampala Declaration and invest substantially on obtaining soil data.
“African countries are still not too productive because of poor soil health. Because our farmers are smallholder, they rely on organic fertiliser. But even with the chemical fertilisers, we should be able to monitor the quantum of fertilisers being supplied. It has been realised that only 10 African countries apply an average of 10 kg of fertilisers. We are cognisant of the fact that an oversupply of the fertiliser would also require alkaline to bring back the soil to good health. This means that research is quite important,” Vilakati reiterated.
His immediate priorities for revitalising agriculture include a 100-day plan, which aims to attain rapid results in ensuring every country domesticate the Malabo Declaration and the Kampala Declaration.
The Commissioner is also planning to lay more emphasis on renewing the African seed banks.
-0- PANA AO/MA 24June2025
