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The Summit of the Heads of State and Government
of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
member countries, dedicated to agriculture and
food security, took place in Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania. Under the theme "Enhancing
Agriculture and Food Security for Poverty
Reduction in the SADC Region", the one-day
summit aimed to analyse why agriculture is under
funded, and underdeveloped in the region and why
rural farmers are the poorest people in their
nations. The Dar es Salaam Declaration on
Agriculture and Food Security released after the
meeting contains commitments to help provide
farmers with inputs like fertilisers, increase
market access in Africa and beyond, create
infrastructure to support farming and expand the
use of farm machinery. Participants will also
seek to share best practices in the region,
widen financing for farmers and help women in
farming.
The SADC brings together 13 countries
representing at least 212 million people. It
includes Angola, Botswana,
the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi,
Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. An
official report issued before the summit pointed
to increasing poverty, the lack of adequate
investment in agriculture, poor market access,
insufficient disaster preparedness, poor rural
infrastructure and HIV/AIDS as the key causes of
food insecurity. The plan includes short-,
medium- and long-term actions. Highlights
include supplying production inputs such as
agricultural seeds and tools, adopting a policy
to manage water and irrigation, access to land,
research and dissemination of technologies,
creating financing mechanisms for the
agricultural sector and alleviating the impact
of AIDS on food security.
The action plan calls the attention to the fact
that forest resources in the region are being
destroyed at an estimated rate of 1.62 million
hectares per year, contributing to
desertification on the continent. It states that
fauna and human resources are not being used in
a sustainable way; the soils and water resources
are inadequately managed, and policies on the
sustainable management of marine resources need
improving.
According to a Southern Africa Research and
Documentation Centre report, almost 70% of the
population in the
SADC region depends on local
agriculture for food, income and employment, and
agricultural output strongly influences the
region's economic growth. Agriculture is not
only the main employer in the region, it
contributes
35% of gross domestic product (GDP)
and roughly 13% of total export earnings in the
region. South African statistics indicate that
15 million of the region's 212 million people
are targeted to receive food aid. Pretoria
blames food problems in the region on poor crops
over the past decade and a big decline in aid
flows to agriculture. The region uses only 48.6
million hectares for agriculture despite having
226.5 million hectares of arable land, SADC
statistics show. These statistics also indicate
that cereal production increased slightly from
just over 22 million metric tons (mt) in 1990 to
nearly 23 million in 2003,
while the region's
population grew from 152 million to
212 million
over the same period.
The latest regional food security report paints
a mixed picture for southern Africa's staple
maize harvest.
The Southern Africa Food Security
Brief, posted on the Famine Early Warning
Systems Network (FEWS NET) website, noted that
"the first half of the [growing] season was
marked by a late onset [of] ... poor, erratic
rains, resulting in the loss of early-planted
crops due to extended dry spells", but "while
crop growing conditions improved in the second
half of the season, heavy downpours led to
flooding and inundation, with the loss of crop
fields in areas that lie along the main river
basins". "In some parts, (such as southern
Malawi), mid-March ushered in another dry spell,
once more adversely affecting the late-planted
crop (January/February), which had been
developing well," the report commented.
Given the erratic rains in the first part of the
season, which necessitated multiple plantings,
and the flooding that occurred in the second
half, "overall prospects are not very good".
Without restocking strategic grain reserves, the
region would have a small surplus of 704 000 mt
of maize. "However, many countries will need to
replenish their strategic grain reserves
[including Malawi and Zimbabwe], which have been
drawn down considerably over the past few months
in response to increasing food insecurity and
rising staple food prices among vulnerable
populations during the [pre-harvest] lean
season. A full replenishment of stocks would
wipe out the projected surplus and result in an
overall regional deficit of some 875 000 mt,"
the brief warned.
On an individual country basis only South
Africa, Mozambique and Zambia had projected
exportable maize surpluses. It was therefore
anticipated that formal and informal trade would
play "a crucial role in closing part of the
projected food gaps in the affected countries…
South Africa's exportable surplus (estimated at
about 2m mt) will be sufficient to cover
the import requirements of Botswana, Lesotho,
Swaziland and Namibia, estimated at 500 000 mt,
while serving the needs of other neighbouring
states, easing pressure on available supplies
and stabilising prices," the brief stated.
The Dar es Salaam summit called on SADC member
states to increase agricultural funding to boost
regional food production in a joint declaration.
The Presidents of Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia
and top government officials from the 13-nation
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
region urged states, "to progressively increase
financing for agriculture by allocating at least
10% of their respective national budgets within
the next five years." The Dar es Salaam
Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security
states that: "states have undertaken to ensure
availability and access of key agricultural
inputs to farmers such as improved seed
varieties, fertilisers,
agro-chemicals, tillage
services and farm implements which are critical
to increase production."
The Tanzanian President told a press
conference that
"no specific measures" were
agreed on but "each country will draw up its own
plans in making seeds, fertiliser and
agro-chemicals available and cheaper."
The Namibian President, Sam Nujoma, called for
proper use of rivers and lakes to boost
agriculture. "Our region is endowed with many
perennial rivers and lakes. However,
we continue
to be too dependent on rain-fed agriculture. We
have not gone far enough to take advantage of
the waters of these rivers and lakes," he said.
The Angolan Planning Minister affirmed
that the SADC food security mechanisms call for the
establishment of reserves of foods, such as
cereals, to enable countries to maintain
nutrition levels and aid their populations in
times of crisis. He described some actions of
the Angolan government aimed at reducing hunger
and poverty, such as programmes to support
peasant families, the Social Aid Fund and the
social reintegration programme for demobilised
soldiers.
The planning minister told summit members that the region had
the capacity to increase agricultural production
and improve the food situation. "I feel strongly
and deeply the indignity of having to beg for
food from time to time.
I am sure that we can
identify strategies that will, in the shortest
possible time, work to improve agricultural
production and enhance food security [in the
region],”
he said.
He went on to explain that the success of the
action plan depended on each member meeting its
obligations and on making a clear distinction
between activities to be undertaken at national
level and those that will have be to undertaken
at the regional level. "We need to take
cognisance of all underlying reasons for hunger
in the region. We need better policies, and
improved, assured and timely access by farmers
to key agricultural inputs, including improved
seeds and fertiliser. Our farmers need access to
better technologies and larger markets,"
he
added. He also reminded participants not to
forget smallholder peasants, going on to say
that the SADC countries would not solve problems
related to food security and poverty reduction
without removing obstacles in the path of the
smallholder peasant production system in Africa.
He further urged the regional leaders to adopt
better policies in order to ensure farmers can
access improved seeds, fertilisers, better
technologies and larger markets in time. "The
first thing is for the region and individual
nations to show serious political will," he
emphasised, adding that the real challenge
facing the region is getting governments to
"commit themselves to the eradication of
famine." |
