Roundup: Africa's food imports value to rise to 110 bln USD by 2025

Food imports into Africa is set to increase to 110 billion U.S. dollars in the next nine years, a situation agriculture experts warned on Thursday.

African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina told the ongoing African Green Revolution Forum in Nairobi that the increase in food bill will have serious consequences to the African economies and consumers as well.

"Africa is spending 35 billion dollars on food imports which is a huge burden, worsening current account and fiscal deficits and creating macroeconomic instability, while post-harvest loses stands at 4 billion dollars. If the current trend continues, Africa will spend 110 billion dollars on food imports by 2025," said Adesina.

To ensure the trend is tamed, Adesina advised value chain players to fast track policies geared towards diversifying the African economies.

"The diversification model of the agriculture sector has to encompass the increasing population of the youth...enticing youth into farming will save the continent against food crisis in the next 10 to 15 years," he said.

Adesina advised African governments to accelerate agricultural production in order to reduce food import bills, revive the rural economies, slow down rural to urban migration, expand foreign exchange earnings and create jobs, especially for the youth.

Increasing investments, he said, will equally hasten agriculture transformation. He confirmed that the AfDB is implementing the 24 billion dollars Feed Africa Strategy to unlock the African agriculture.

Ousmane Badiane, director for Africa International Food Policy Research Institute warned that food consumers in Africa over and above grappling with decreased food production will further incur high cost of food as prices skyrocket in the global market.

"For Africa to get out of the food crisis, deliberate efforts need to be employed to boost production and diversification of the sector. If we produce more, it will stabilize prices and thus enhance consumers' ability to acquire. But reduced production means tough times for the farmers and consumers," Badiane said.

"Realizing the promise of African agriculture will not be cheap. It could require 15 billion to 400 billion dollars over the next ten years in public and private sector investments in all aspects of food production, processing, marketing and transport," added Badiane.

International Fund for Agricultural Development President Kanayo Nwanze said the continent has continued to rely on international market despite being endowed with 60 percent of the global arable land.

Countries like India, Brazil, Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970s were undergoing serious food crisis while Africa was experiencing high production. But over the years, the situation has changed and the said countries are now able to feed their population and export while Africa is now facing a food crisis, according to Kanayo. Endit