From Linked in
The long term future of African agriculture would seem to me to lie more with medium scale farms [ 10 -300 hectares] with some contribution from both large scale farms and small scale farmers who will largely be part time farmers - deriving only a small % of their livelihood from farming. The demographic trends in most countries over the next three decades do indicate not a very prominent future for small scale farming in SSA - i.e. increasing urbanization [with most countries going to have more than 50% of their population living in urban areas by 2025] and ageing rural population [median age of farmers is increasing to 50 - 60 years as it is the young and educated who are migrating].
I define small scale farmers as those cultivating less than 5 hectares relying mostly on family labor and on what HE President Kikwete of Tanzania quite rightly defines as the BC [Before Christ] technology - hand-tool and animal powered technologies for their field operations.
Indeed, if you go to many villages now most of the young are busy hawking goods be it roasted cashew, meat etc or selling second hand clothes, mobile telephone air time or soft drinks rather than farming. A rapid appraisal of the cashew value chains in Tanzania shows that there are more young people employed formally and informally in roasting, packaging and hawking cashew kernels than those who are actually managing the cashew farms/trees.
Yes, the small scale farmers will be there in 30-40 years time but their contribution to the national AgGDP [as farmers] is likely to be small. The political imperative will be such that Governments in SSA will be forced to look for different types of farmers to meet the food needs of their populations [both urban and rural]. Further, the experience of Zimbabwe & Kenya with large scale farming dominated by non-indigenous farmers does point to the difficulties of politically sustaining such a farming cadre. The medium scale farmers are therefore likely to emerge as the key group in agriculture in SSA over the next four decades. We are already seeing signs of this in some parts of SSA e.g. Zambia, Western Kenya; Southern Tanzania etc.
Certainly those of us who grew up in rural Africa in the 1950s, 60s and 70s do clearly see the difference between the rural areas then and what is there now post 2000. Unfortunately the current development models are still based on rural Africa as it was in the 1960s.
By geoffrey mrema
From Linked in
The long term future of African agriculture would seem to me to lie more with medium scale farms [ 10 -300 hectares] with some contribution from both large scale farms and small scale farmers who will largely be part time farmers - deriving only a small % of their livelihood from farming. The demographic trends in most countries over the next three decades do indicate not a very prominent future for small scale farming in SSA - i.e. increasing urbanization [with most countries going to have more than 50% of their population living in urban areas by 2025] and ageing rural population [median age of farmers is increasing to 50 - 60 years as it is the young and educated who are migrating].
I define small scale farmers as those cultivating less than 5 hectares relying mostly on family labor and on what HE President Kikwete of Tanzania quite rightly defines as the BC [Before Christ] technology - hand-tool and animal powered technologies for their field operations.
Indeed, if you go to many villages now most of the young are busy hawking goods be it roasted cashew, meat etc or selling second hand clothes, mobile telephone air time or soft drinks rather than farming. A rapid appraisal of the cashew value chains in Tanzania shows that there are more young people employed formally and informally in roasting, packaging and hawking cashew kernels than those who are actually managing the cashew farms/trees.
Yes, the small scale farmers will be there in 30-40 years time but their contribution to the national AgGDP [as farmers] is likely to be small. The political imperative will be such that Governments in SSA will be forced to look for different types of farmers to meet the food needs of their populations [both urban and rural]. Further, the experience of Zimbabwe & Kenya with large scale farming dominated by non-indigenous farmers does point to the difficulties of politically sustaining such a farming cadre. The medium scale farmers are therefore likely to emerge as the key group in agriculture in SSA over the next four decades. We are already seeing signs of this in some parts of SSA e.g. Zambia, Western Kenya; Southern Tanzania etc.
Certainly those of us who grew up in rural Africa in the 1950s, 60s and 70s do clearly see the difference between the rural areas then and what is there now post 2000. Unfortunately the current development models are still based on rural Africa as it was in the 1960s.
By geoffrey mrema