By Evelyn Kasiri
On 26th January 2020, Prophet Elvis Mbonye called on world leaders to prepare their nations from the risk of an upcoming “food shortage”. He made these remarks during his weekly online message, where he indicated that 2021 provides an opportunity for any nation that prepares well to become the “food basket” of the world. These remarks were made on the second day of the World Economic Forum’s online conference running from 25th-29th January 2021 where leaders from all over the world, discussed how to engineer what they called a “global re-set” as the post-pandemic solution to undermine capitalism in order to rebuild the global economy from damage of covid19. One component of the global reset is to use Climate Change to justify removing the freedom and independence of individuals involved in the food supply chain through digitalising farmers and centralising global food production according to their website.
If Africa’s markets are not opened urgently by removing curfews, lockdowns and border covid restrictions, then consequences of such policies are likely to contribute to food shortage for over 400 million people in Africa sooner than later. If leaders honestly compared the risk of deaths due to hunger compared to deaths due to covid19, they would act differently to prioritise saving lives from the risk of hunger.
“We have already seen a massive loss of jobs and personal income due to lockdowns and curfews in all sectors, including entertainment, hotel and tourism which are most affected. Farmers and traders who supplied hotels, bars, schools and restaurants have lost businesses and jobs like a widespread merciless massacre of people’s livelihood, leaving over 150 million people in Africa forced into brokeness in order to save them from covid infections from which over 99% recover. Most of those who have lost jobs are lower income households which often spend 80-90% of their income on food, meaning that a small reduction in income leads to starvation, which has very limited levels of recovery compared to covid infections. We must prevent this situation from getting out of hand, lest we loose our nations sovereignty to global food suppliers, ” explained Mr Collins Tugumisirize, Senior Advisor to Global Economic Network on Africa investments.
Whereas the globe has witnessed a competitive race in 2020 for which continent will dominate production of the covid vaccines for the worlds population, with over 127 countries working on a different vaccine product for the same virus, we are likely to see the year 2021 manifest a tight race for which continent will dominate food production and supply to the world if Prophet Mbonye’s prophecy is anything to go by. In the event of a global food shortage , what are the chances of Africa becoming the world’s “food basket”? Although Africa has the world’s highest potential for agriculture, with more than 60% of the the world’s uncultivated arable land, this potential is undermined by high cost of finance, poor infrastructure, insecurity and political instability. Also Africa exports about US$ 40 billion of food and agriculture, while it imports about US$ 50billion annually of food and agriculture products. This makes Africa a net importer or dependant on foreign food suppliers inspite of the having the highest potential to feed the world. Agriculture is also responsible for 23% of Africa’s GDP, yet in the sub-sahara region agriculture employs over 60% of the population.
“The biggest exporter companies from foreign owned, so technically we need a model nation to raise global dominating food entrepreneurs. How do you explain the fact that of the world’s leading exporters of food, USA leading the world, followed by Germany, United Kingdom and then China, we notice that Germany and United Kingdom dont have land to farm all that they export? This partly explains why the leading large-scale exporters in Africa are not locally owned companies but are Germany or UK owned farmers. This is a risk to Africa’s food security when food wars begin. This is why we have allocated Euros 450 million (out of a total mobilised investment fund of euros 2.4billion), at lower interest cost of 2-4% for ten years tenure, for Africa’s food security and independence,” says Mr Collins Tugumisirize, Africa Advisor at Global Economic Network and CEO of Leverage Africa Limited a UK based investment consulting firm.
In 2020, USA led in food exports earning over US$ 72.6 billion, followed by Germany US$ 34.6 billion, United Kingdom US$ 29.5 billion and then China US$ 25.1 billion. Whereas cash crops dominate Africa’s exports, it will take food crops like maize, wheat, beans, etc to win the threat of food shortage. In the short term, Africa must learn to be strategically dominant in Agriculture trade from nations like Germany which is the worlds third leading exporter of coffee (with $2.4billion in exports), after Switzerland (which is world’s number two with $2.5billion from coffee exports) without a single coffee plantation in both Germany and Switzerland, in order to catch up on the global scene. Then in the long term Africa should adopt lessons from Brazil (which is the worlds number one exporter of coffee $4billion annually), which has maximised both land utility and trade advantage to dominate the global coffee industry.
In 2019, the German development minister, Gerd Müller, announced a new €1 billion Development Investment Fund for boosting private investments in Africa with a focus on Agri-business. The fund’s goal is to facilitate and support the entry of German businesses into African markets or to help African businesses grow. The new fund has three pillars: ‘AfricaConnect’, “‘AfricaGrow’, and the ‘Business Network Africa’.
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The author is Evelyn Kasiri, Woman MP aspirant for Kampala District and business woman.
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