Posted on 02/01/2006 11:05:03 AM PST by blam
Africa's hunger - a systemic crisis
By Martin Plaut
BBC Africa analyst
The number of Africans needing food aid has doubled in a decade
More than half of Africa is now in need of urgent food assistance.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning that 27 sub-Saharan countries now need help.
But what appear as isolated disasters brought about by drought or conflict in countries like Somalia, Malawi, Niger, Kenya and Zimbabwe are - in reality - systemic problems.
It is African agriculture itself that is in crisis, and according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, this has left 200 million people malnourished.
It is particularly striking that the FAO highlights political problems such as civil strife, refugee movements and returnees in 15 of the 27 countries it declares in need of urgent assistance. By comparison drought is only cited in 12 out of 27 countries.
The implication is clear - Africa's years of wars, coups and civil strife are responsible for more hunger than the natural problems that befall it.
Critical issues
In essence Africa's hunger is the product of a series of interrelated factors. Africa is a vast continent, and no one factor can be applied to any particular country. But four issues are critical:
Decades of underinvestment in rural areas, which have little political clout. Africa's elites respond to political pressure, which is mainly exercised in towns and cities. This is compounded by corruption and mismanagement - what donors call a lack of sound governance.
"Poor governance is a major issue in many African countries, and one that has serious repercussions for long-term food security," says a statement by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
"Problems such as corruption, collusion and nepotism can significantly inhibit the capacity of governments to promote development efforts."
Wars and political conflict, leading to refugees and instability.
In 2004 the chairman of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, reminded an AU summit that the continent had suffered from 186 coups and 26 major wars in the past 50 years. It is estimated that there are more than 16 million refugees and displaced persons in Africa. Farmers need stability and certainty before they can succeed in producing the food their families and societies need.
HIV/Aids depriving families of their most productive labour.
This is particularly a problem in southern Africa, where over 30% of sexually active adults are HIV positive. According to aid agency Oxfam, when a family member becomes infected, food production can fall by up to 60%, as women are not only expected to be carers, but also provide much of the agricultural labour.
Unchecked population growth
"Sub-Saharan Africa 's population has grown faster than any region over the past 30 years, despite the millions of deaths from the Aids pandemic," the UN Population Fund says.
A decline in soil quality makes land less productive
"Between 1975 and 2005, the population more than doubled, rising from 335 to 751 million, and is currently growing at a rate of 2.2% a year."
In some parts of Africa land is plentiful, and this is not a problem. But in others it has had severe consequences.
It has forced farming families to subdivide their land time and again, leading to tiny plots or families moving onto unsuitable, overworked land.
In the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea some land is now so degraded that there is little prospect that it will ever produce a decent harvest.
This problem is compounded by the state of Africa's soils.
In sub-Saharan Africa soil quality is classified as degraded in about 72% of arable land and 31% of pasture land.
In addition to natural nutrient deficiencies in the soil, soil fertility is declining by the year through "nutrient mining", whereby nutrients are removed over the harvest period and lost through leaching, erosion or other means.
Nutrient levels have declined over the past 30 years, says the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Consequences
The result is that a continent that was more than self sufficient in food at independence 50 years ago, is now a massive food importer. The book The African Food Crisis says that in less than 40 years the sub-continent went from being a net exporter of basic food staples to relying on imports and food aid.
In 1966-1970, net exports averaged 1.3 million tons of food a year, it states.
"By the late 1970s Africa imported 4.4 million tonnes of staple foods a year, a figure that had risen to 10 million tonnes by the mid 1980s."
It said that since independence, agricultural output per capita remained stagnant, and in many places declined.
Some campaigners and academics argue that African farmers will only be able to properly feed their families and societies when Western goods stop flooding their markets.
Also, today's Black (Bantu) natives over ran South Africa around 3,000BC displacing the San Bushmen who are a completely different race.
mugabes always blight the crops.
They don't want facts to get in the way of a good sob story.
Recolonize Africa - give it to the Chinese. They're looking for elbow room and resources, and they're pretty good at feedin' themselves for communists.
"Some campaigners and academics argue that African farmers will only be able to properly feed their families and societies when Western goods stop flooding their markets."
Yeah, that will help their soil.
This is overall a very good article because it correctly places most of the blame on the African's themselves. Government corruption seemed to be the greatest factor of all in the hunger problem. Bet the South Africans wish the white farmers were back in business, life was much better for them then.
They refuse to stop having babies that they can't feed. Even when their children are literally starving to death, they go right ahead and have more. They obviously don't care, so why should I? Frankly, I'm more concerned about the fact that they're wiping out wildlife by overrunning and destroying every square inch of land they can get their hands on.
This is a perfect argument for Empire America. The US moves in, takes over these third-world misery factories. It installs an effective local government overseen by American supervisors. Through that government, food is distributed, agricultural practices are reformed, and infrastructure is improved to the point where starvation is no longer epidemic. If the locals object to the "colonization" of their precious dungheap, then they can have the starvation, the disease, and the pestilence back. If not, then maybe they can learn to be human and eventually take over for themselves.
The late Sam Kinison had the right solution to the problem.
When this is pointed out to many; however, the blame will fall squarely upon, 'centuries of colonialism,' which in all honesty represented the highest standards of living much of the continent has ever known.
marking
Can anyone point to black majority ruled countries that are not unmitigated disasters and dependant upon outside financial and technical support?
The new PC definition of "compassion": maximizing the number of humans who must die, as long as possible, and call it "compassion".
At the end of the day, when it is no longer possible, just say, "we mwnat well".
Yes, but their mistake was in leaving before their time. They succumbed to the pressures of "anti-colonialism" and left the rats to scurry around their own hole and make a mess of things. Certainly, they have that right. But if they do, and they CHOOSE to do so, then they have no high ground from which to demand that the rest of the world subsidize their barbarism.
In other words, we'll bail you out for humanitarian reasons. But be assured that our money DOES come with strings attached. And those strings are -- among other things -- that you can't randomly hack each other up into chum, that you can't steal the money to buy hookers and limos, that you can't even claim to be a legitimate government. You're only caretakers until we give you the green light.
For a perfect example of the decay of a de-colonized African country, look at the history of Congo/Zaire. And they were colonized by the FRENCH, for cripes' sake!
The first world sends tens of billions in direct aid and hundreds of billions in loans, on terms that rarely involve actual repayment in full with interest. They make this available to and through corrupt governments more interested in the French Riviera than in their own countryside. But access to this endless stream of free money depends on political power in Africa, and manipulation of PC world opinion. So the lesson to would be leaders is that production is utterly unnecessary, but political control is absolutely essential.
So when the farmers dislike how they are treated, who is supposed to listen? Their production in unnecessary for the local pols. Their repression is mandatory, to maintain access to the western money stream. When local conditions get so bad their produce is driven to scarcity and its value soars - natural law's way of ensuring their useful cooperative work is rewarded and maintained - the first world steps in again and floods the place with free food, driving what should be their most valuable commodities to zero.
Then first worlders pretend all of Africa's problems are domestic and they have nothing to do with it. Or worse, that they must give twice as much no-strings bakshish to the dictators, and twice as much free agricultural product to the people.
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