Tear down some of the fences, and Africa will feed Africa

GLOBALLY, THE BIG QUESTION in food production – the one that reverberates in any discussion about the future – is who, and how, the hungry world will be fed.

Most of the focus is on Africa, and the growing population there.

So the question goes: Who will feed Africa?

Well, after spending two weeks with some 150 agricultural journalists from nearly 60 countries visiting South Africa farms and agribusinesses, meeting progressive farmers there and seeing the enormous potential that is starting to be realized, one thing is clear to me: to a major extent, Africa will feed Africa.

Granted, it will do so with a significant measure of help from abroad, particularly financial investment and research. But I saw evidence that South Africa can lead the way in helping feed millions of Africans. It has vast amounts of land, favourable weather, resourceful farmers, and proximity to those who are the hungriest.

Unfortunately, though, it also has water shortages, and president Jacob Zuma. I’m not sure which is worse.

South Africa is in the third year of a crippling drought.

In beautiful Cape Town, at the southern most point of the country, even hotel guests are being asked to use every conservation measure possible to help management get through the water crisis. Farmers and ranchers are waiting anxiously for southern hemisphere autumn rains to arrive and replenish dangerously low reservoirs.

Africa has some resilience when it comes to drought. It’s been through it before. Research at home and abroad, including at the University of Guelph, is targeting the development of drought-resistant varieties that will help farmers persevere, particularly as climate change continues to take hold.

But as for lifting the misery caused by president Zuma and the political degradation that can be laid primarily at his feet, well, that’s another matter.

Zuma is hurting his own people with his incompetence and corruption. He’s wrecking the African National Congress, the party founded by anti-apartheid visionary Nelson Mandela, and the dream of a prosperous future for Africa.

Zuma’s latest folly, firing the country’s popular finance minister, sent South Africa’s currency tumbling. Its bonds have now sunk to junk status on financial markets. Among other things, that means the price of borrowing goes up and credit tightens.

What a shame. The world was starting to look favourably on Africa overall for investment. The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association says private financiers invested $3.8 billion in 145 deals across Africa in 2016, including many in agriculture. That was more than 50 per cent higher than the previous year.

Meanwhile, the instability caused by Zuma is perpetuating conditions that open the door for racist factions to terrorize farmers and bastardize the equality goals of 1994’s Restitution of Land Rights Act. This act was brought forward by Mandela to enable indigenous black South Africans to lay claim to parcels of land that was theirs before apartheid ripped the country apart.

In some cases, those claims have gone smoothly. I met one farmer who gave up land through the government-mediated and funded process, and was paid for his land in a month.

But still, horror stories exist about angry indigenous people simply moving onto farmers’ land and taking it forcefully, whether theirs is a legitimate claim or not. An organization called Free State Agriculture is trying hard to promote peace and cooperation among the farm community.

Its job – and that of South African farmers poised to help feed others on the continent, and even abroad – will be much easier in a different political climate.

Pray for Africa that it comes sooner than later, and that Zuma departs. Then the healing that Mandela began can continue.