Agric an important economic activity

AGRICULTURE provides employment for about twothirds of the continent’s working population and for each country contributes an average of 30% to 60% to gross domestic product and about 30% of the value of exports.

Nonetheless, arable land and land under permanent crops occupy only about 6% of Africa’s total land area.

Except for countries with sizeable populations of European descent — such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya — agriculture has been largely confined to subsistence farming and has been considerably dependent on the inefficient system of shifting cultivation, in which land is temporarily cultivated with simple implements until its fertility decreases and then abandoned for a time to allow the soil to regenerate.

Much of Africa's arable land has generally been allocated through a complex system of communal tenure and ownership rather than through individually acquired title, and peasant farmers have had shaky rights to use relatively small and scattered holdings.

This system of land ownership has tended to keep the intensity of agricultural production low and has inhibited the rate at which capital has been mobilised for modernising production.

A number of countries have made efforts to raise productive levels by selecting better varieties of seeds and planting materials, using tractors and other mechanised equipment, or increasing the use of mineral fertilisers and insecticides.

Such measures, however, have been relatively limited, and they have raised concerns over their role in accelerating soil erosion and desertification. In areas of cash crop production, land has become private rather than community property, and cultivation is intensive.

The persistence of relatively low-productive agricultural systems on large parts of the continent also stems from a lack of integration between crop production and animal husbandry.

Traditionally, sedentary cultivators like the Hausa in Nigeria and the Kikuyu in Kenya live apart from their nomadic herdsmen neighbours (the Fulani and Maasai, respectively), with the result that large areas of the continent do not have access to animals for draft power or manure for fertiliser.

The incidence of such insect pests as the tsetse fly also discourages mixed farming in many areas.

The need to sharply increase food production to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population has, however, remained paramount.