Food sovereignty now
The food crises in Africa is in it’s peak now coupled with the impact of the Covid-19.Africa needs food now .
After decades of armed struggle, terrorism and international opposition to apartheid, South Africa, the last country in Africa gained independence finally and the black men took the affairs of the continent. On 5th March 1957, the night before Ghana, the first country in Africa to gain independence, witnessed the dawn of freedom ,Kwame Nkrumah wearing the traditional northern kente fugu, with his white hat and handkerchief in his right hand declared Ghana was finally free ‘forever’ but one striking thing he said was that the independence was meaningless until it reaches the whole of Africa and its liberation, and that the black man was capable of managing his own affairs. This triumph led to an escapade of many other African countries gaining freedom from the colonial masters. After over 70 years of independence one striking question still exist; is Africa actually independent? This is one of the many questions that puzzle the minds of most analysts including me. A sovereign state is a country which does not depend on any other external country for the management of its affairs. Most African countries stand below this bar as most of the colonial masters still intrude into the affairs of some of the countries with the likes of the former French colonists who still use CFA, a currency issued by France among others.
When a country looses grip of some vital aspects of its economy such as education, finances, security, then truly the sovereignty of such country is under attack. National security is the ability of a sovereign country to ensure its members are secured in all spheres of their lives and one most important area is food. Currently there are about 9% of the world population representing 690 million people who are hungry — go to bed on an empty stomach each night. Since 2014, the number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise. If it continues at this rate, it’ll exceed 840 million by 2030 and sub-Sahara Africa which has the highest percentage per population of about 22% is expected to reach about 25% by 2030. Food is one of the major necessities of life and any country that cannot provide food for his people will pay with her sovereignty as she must always compromise her grounds to get food for her people.
Food crises in Africa
After my uncle saw my grade 6 terminal report, he was proud and in return he gave me a newspaper. I treasured it so much that I didn’t want to open it because I saw it as his goodbye package to me since he died in a car accident few days after he had given me the newspaper. It had a blue and white ribbon attached to the middle of the wrapped paper and a large red inscription written at the top, Ghanaian Times. After reading the special Ghana independence month edition, I was saddened. The governments after Nkrumah sold almost all the factory Nkrumah built. The pan -Africans met the colonial masters face to face and knew the burden and harm they had cost Africa by infiltrating our culture and way of life. They realized to make us independent we had to produce most of the things we consume. The last page of the newspaper contained graphs showing the decline in percentage of food produced in the country per the total population. We were increasing in number, but the food produced locally didn’t match population. In (Martinielllo,G 2015) she talks about similar issues in Uganda and other African countries. In Uganda for instance the population has increased by about 10% over a decade whiles percentage of food produced per population had declined more than 20%.This has forced many governments in Africa to import food from US, China, Vietnam among others fill the food gap. Africa has a great land for farming coupled with a great climate which supports farming but yet can hardly make ends meet. Meanwhile the leaders in Africa are aware of the food staples their citizens consume most, then one would query; what prevents them from sponsoring their farmers on large scale farming to overcome the farm produce(food) deficit to feed their citizens whiles creating jobs.
THE AFRICAN FOOD PROBLEM
My grandmother always woke up as early as 6 am and got ready for her farm. I however hated to wake up by the way at that time. She would get breakfast done, wear her long socks, put her cutlass in her palm woven basket and would tell me she was going to her office. With a giggle I always asked her which tree was her boss and she would reply “I am the boss on my own”. She made farming seem appealing to me to the extent I wanted to be a farmer one day. One vacation, I decided to follow her to her farm. As we walked down the one lane road with long bushes along the sides, we came across a lot of our relatives. My grandmother would tell me, this land belongs to your grand uncle Kwasi Atta, and the one after the mango tree belongs to your aunty. This continued till we got to her farm. To my surprise her farm was less than an acre with almost every crop in it. I was so disappointed, but I couldn’t let it out but maybe she saw it on my face. This is the story of the numerous people in Africa who are labeled as farmers. In my community for instance 60 % of the total population are farmers, but less than 5% of these people are into large scale farming with more than half of these farmers having farms as small as that of my granny. One may ask so what’s the way forward. After enquiries from my granny, she made me understand she was farming on a family land and every family member had a portion they farmed on to get food for their families. Some of the families she was referring to included families of sometimes up to 8 individuals or more including parents all depending on a single acre of land. You can imagine how hungry these families would be. The family land tenure system has been identified as one of the main problems facing the quest for Africa to be food sovereign. According to (Martiniello et al,2015) -trans-culture behavior towards acquisition of land was identified as one of the main causes of food insecurity. She identified through her research that culture in certain part of Uganda limited farmers access to land. These lands may be idle whiles people continue to die in hunger. Farmers may have the passion but with the ever-rising cost of farming lands, land dispute issues, family and ethnic fights over lands among others, farmers who cannot overcome these obstacles are forced to short live their dreams and in effect are not able to feed themselves and their families and not to think of others. Obviously, it is a fight won by the rich and strong. (Ngcoya et al 2017) identified land struggles in south Africa as one of the main obstacles women in farming face. Most women and vulnerable, poor and not strong to defend even lands that belong to them and their families. With the slow justice system in Africa such cases when taken to court take years and sometimes justices is not even served right .
The needed action
Africa must abolish the land tenure system and make land free to anyone who wants to farm. Yes free I mean. The proceeds from the farm could be used to compensate the owners of the farm. The kind of change Africa needs in this sector requires a rampant drastic laws and measures to overcome the looming hunger.
(Chilahambakwe et al 2018) identified another problem of Africa which was on the politization of farming in Zimbabwe and how this has affected the country’s food security. The numerous changes in government that goes on in Africa comes with new people who are constantly changing policies to suite their party campaign or manifesto whiles the will of the ordinary citizens including the farmers are disregarded. The Agricultural sector should be apolitical, and room made for experts to take over. There are a lot of learned agriculturalist who may not be interested in politics and due to that their views discarded unfortunately.
Besides that, farmers need the assistance of the government. My grandmother with her passion and enthusiasm could have farmed over 20 acres of land. She has so many varieties of crops per acre in her farm that even one acre per crop wouldn’t suffice. What the farmers need after land is tools, farming-machines, farming seeds, farming knowledge. The hunger that looms over the head of Africa should be seen as an incoming pandemic since it could affect so many people more than it is doing today. We need to produce more than we eat and export some to other people who need food. We can’t always be at the receiving end. We have the land, we have the farmers, we have the weather and climate on our side. Let’s rise and fulfill the change we aspire to see. A healthy people constitute a healthy nation and there is no way we can be healthy without food. No one needs to go hungry with the excuse there is no food. When I sit in the bus to travel from Kumasi to Accra and think of the numerous grasses and weeds I see around, what comes in mind is couldn’t we have planted some mangoes, pears and other food trees which people could have gotten free food from. Current efforts towards this hunger war should be doubled, we need to grow what we eat and eat what we grow. The farmers who need irrigation need to be supported now. A farmer should be able to earn enough to cater for his family. There are rich farmers in America, Asia and other parts of the world and we could create rich farmers in Africa too and the good thing is they are Africans and the money they get will be reinvested in our economies. This is what will inspire and attract the teeming youths without jobs unto this great venture. The agribusiness has a long value chain which when managed well could turn around the fortunes of the continent. The food security strategies Africa needs is determined by the prevailing realities within households and communities. People are hungry and the population is at an ever-increasing rate. Our farmers have the capacity they only need to be pushed. We need to take the right decisions now and save some lives tomorrow. If there is the need to form large farm corporations let’s not hesitate to do that. Africa is all we got, when we all go hungry and we die the money, the riches and all selfish gains will remain and what is a country without her people. When people are well fed, have jobs, can cater for their families, about 70% of most household fights and malice will go away. Crime rate will decrease, and peace, love and hope will continue to reign. Food security is a pressing issue on our continent, and we must all do our bit to ensure everyone is fed. If we are able to provide food for ourselves then we could live the sovereign Africa Nkrumah dreamt of-capable of managing our own affairs, until then we may remain the puppets of other continents and will continue to be limited in many spheres. There is an Akan proverb, “when your hand is in someone’s mouth you cannot hit his head and he who feeds you control you, let’s feed ourselves and take charge of our future.
Reference
- Ngcoya, M., & Kumarakulasingam, N. (2017). The lived experience of food sovereignty: Gender, indigenous crops and small-scale farming in mtubatuba, South Africa: The lived experience of food sovereignty. Journal of Agrarian Change, 17(3), 480–496
- Martiniello, G. (2015). Food sovereignty as praxis: rethinking the food question in Uganda. Third World Quarterly, 36(3), 508–525.
- 4.Mbajiorgu G. Human Development and Food Sovereignty: A Step Closer to Achieving Food Security in South Africa’s Rural Households. Journal of Asian and African Studies. 2020;55(3):330–350. doi:10.1177/0021909619875757
- 5. 1. Bini V. Food security and food sovereignty in west africa. African Geographical Review. 01/2018;37(1):1–13. doi: 10.1080/19376812.2016.1140586.
- . Chihambakwe, M., Mafongoya, P., & Jiri, O. (2018). Urban and Peri-urban agriculture as A pathway to food security: A review mapping the use of food sovereignty. Challenges, 10(1), 6.
