Africa urged to invest in food security

Africa needs to invest in infrastructure, equipment, training and education to smallholder farmers in addition to adopting investor friendly regulation on property rights and food prices in order to adequately feed itself.

This was agreed at a private investment seminar held in Sydney, Australia, six days ago where participants called for positive change on the continent.

“In a nutshell the consensus is that unless there are significant, systematic changes, it would be hard to

Achieve (food self-sufficiency),” said Ignition Investment Management, an Australian investment and advisory firm focusing on key growth sectors in sub-Saharan Africa.

The seminar was co-hosted by Ignition, which currently has investments in the agricultural and tourism sectors in Kenya and Zimbabwe, and the Australia African Business Council (AABC).

“There are incredible opportunities for private investors to introduce not only financing but low cost efficiency tweaks and strategy advice to achieve significant gains in productivity and profit margins in the agriculture sector.

“The fact that Africa imports close to $50 billion of food every year even though it has an estimated 25 percent of the world’s arable land, 7-10 million young people entering the labour force every year and yield rates of small to medium holder farmers are still much lower than the potential all bode well for private investors in Africa,” said Ignition.

The seminar identified several challenges facing the region, among them lack of capital, persistent droughts, energy crisis and monopolies in the agricultural sector.

Post published in: Agriculture

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