Presentation given at Africa Agriculture Science Week, July 19, 2013.

1. Future African Competitiveness:
Foresight for better agricultural futures
African Agricultural Science Week
Session V, sub-theme 1 (“Education & Human Resource Development”)
Accra International Conference Center, 19 July 2013
Siwa Msangi
Global Change Research Theme
Environment & Production Technology Division

2. Page 2
What will determine the future
competitiveness of African agriculture?
Africa must compete with other agricultural
producers from the global south on increasingly
liberalized markets. Its success will be
determined by:
 Costs: driven by the prices of energy, labor
and farming technologies
 Quality: that will differentiate African goods
and determine their „niche‟ in international
markets

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Drivers of change in African agriculture
 Population growth – which continues at a steady
pace and will increase the total volume of demand
 Urbanization – which is also proceeding rapidly
and will affect the composition of demand
 Growth in more intensive livestock production
methods will increase the demand for feed
 External export demand for African agricultural
products –both raw and processed goods
 Also expect more internal trade within Africa to
balance out demand differences b//w regions
Important drivers from the demand-side that will
shape the future of African agriculture are:

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Drivers of change (cont.)
 Crop productivity gains from seed
technologies (losses from stresses)
 Input prices (for fertilizer & fuel)
 Farming technology change
 Changes to supply-chain management
 Climatic variability (in shorter-term) &
longer-term climatic change
Important drivers from the supply-side are:

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What do future studies say about Africa?
 Since Africa‟s share of global trade is
relatively small – it tends to get highly
aggregated (single region or part of RoW)
 Coverage of data in SS Africa tends to be
relatively poor compared to other regions
 The underlying driving forces and production
systems tend not to be well understood
 The tremendous heterogeneity w/in SS
Africa tends to get missed in these studies
Many forward-looking assessments of agriculture
tend to give coarse treatment of Africa

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Exploration of African agricultural futures
 Get a perspective of major issues driving
change in Eastern, Southern & West Africa
 Identify some common challenges faced in
quantifying African agricultural futures in
terms of data and methodology
 In addition to the issues of urbanization,
agribusiness and climate change
• The importance of the informal sector
• The needed „pull‟ of non-agricultural sectors
A small expert consultation in 2012 to discuss some
critical future drivers of change & their implications

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Key sources of uncertainty in African Ag
 The implications for urbanization and wider
socio-economic growth on diets & demand
 The effects that agribusiness & commercial
interests will have on value chains & the rural
sector (land aquisitions, farm size trends)
 How important will Africa‟s internal trade be
in future compared to exchange with RoW?
 The impacts of climate change & incr
variability on various regions of SS Africa
A number of key areas of uncertainty that need
exploration in the future of African agriculture

8. Important messages from studies
 There are gains to be made in improving ag
performance and competitiveness in SS Africa –
that policy & science can contribute towards
• Low-hanging fruit remains in terms of closing
yield gaps
• Better infrastructure and market access can help
farmers to do this
• Additional irrigation potential can be exploited
but most ag growth will still need to come from
rainfed production
• Strengthening food quality standards

9. Important messages (cont.)
 Patterns of urbanization & socio-economic growth
will provide important sources of future demand
 Some of Africa‟s best market potential in future will
be within its own borders and between neighbors –
regional bodies (ECOWAS, COMESA, EAC) can
help
 Agribusiness (foreign & domestic) will continue to
be an important player in shaping value chains
w/in Africa

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Where can dramatic change take place?
 The traditional high-value exports of African
ag will likely continue to perform well:
coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton
 Could the currently modest levels of
aquaculture production take off in future (as
was the case in parts of SE Asia?)
 How can the ground be laid to enable these
future success stories to emerge?
There could be areas of African agriculture that
could take off in future – where could these be?

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How foresight can help policy preparation
 A combination of qualitative and quantitative
approaches can be powerful
 Identify the major areas of uncertainty to
explore – through consultative interactions
 Use a quantitative framework to organize data
and to enforce an internal consistency on how
future pathways and impacts are envisioned
 Can provide a useful space to test
assumptions and understand their implications
A forward-looking approach that allows analysts
to challenge assumptions and explore options

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Important next steps
 Need to build up a cadre of professionals who are
skilled in qualitative and quantitative aspects of
foresight – to serve in private & public institutions
 Need a mechanism for collecting and organizing
relevant data needed to characterize ag & food
system performance
 Need to engender a culture of prospective planning
and using futures studies as a tool for planning and
priority setting within African institutions – make it
an integral component of the policy process
 Link to efforts outside SSA to better inform them
Need to build a better platform for carrying out
forward-looking analysis on African agriculture

13. THANK YOU!
See: http://www.ifpri.org/