The importance of agriculture cannot be underestimated in the continent. Apart from providing subsistence and feeding millions of impoverished Africans, the sector also creates the majority of jobs in most African countries.
The Grow Africa initiative is a program of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to accelerate investments for sustainable growth in African agriculture.
"How to commercialize production by smallholders, who make up 80% of all farms in the region?," wrote Ibhraim Assane Mayaki and Strive Masiyiwai , co-chairs of the Grow Africa Steering Committee. "And how to generate the vast private-sector investment by farmers, SMEs and international companies needed to transform value chains, from farm to fork?"
The initiative can count to some early success. Around 123 companies have committed investments of USD 7.2 billion, with most of the projects expected to get off the ground within five years.
Around USD 970 million of investments were committed in 2013, and many companies that had started earlier are looking to expand their operations. These companies boast 2.6 million stakeholders and have created 33,000 jobs.
This, of course is a drop in the ocean, given the scale of unemployment in the continent, and the breadth of untapped agriculture opportunities.
"Roughly 600 million Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, of which Grow Africa partners reached only a few percent," said the CAAPD Institute in a progress report published last month. "Similarly, sourcing by Grow Africa partners was only marginal when compared against the USD 40+ billion of estimated annual food imports for Africa."
COMMERCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Despite strong interest in African agriculture, private-sector actors - large or small, domestic or international - report that the pace of growth and investment is curtailed by the high risks and costs of doing business within the sector.
As small producers contribute up to 90% of the continent's agriculture output and represent 80% of the farms, commercializing their efforts is crucial to raising their standard of living.
The continental's agricultural GDP has grown on average by nearly 4% over the past decade while public agricultural expenditures rose by over 7% per year.
Grow Africa reports that farmers are aggregating themselves into commercially-robust structures, with governments, donors and NGOs playing a catalytic role to overcome pre-competitive barriers. "Despite the progress, the need for commercially sustainable agricultural business models remains central to unlocking investment at a transformative scale."
Agriculture development in many Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and India have often been led by women, and the sector presents a great opportunity for African women as well to help themselves and contribute to the wider economy.
