Food Security: Africa Should Be The Answer

With the relentless increase in world population, particularly in Africa, food production has become the subject of much attention. This provides a golden opportunity for science and skills transfer to position Africa as the solution to the food security conundrum, says Dr Peter Oberem, founder and CEO of Afrivet.

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We are told that by 2050 there will be nine billion human beings to feed, and a quarter of them will live in Africa. This means we have a mere 32 years in which to double food production in general, and protein (mainly meat) production in particular.

Faced with this immovable target, food security and food production have been major scientific and political topics of discussion and debate for some time now. The land available for food production is finite, therefore the only possible solutions are to increase production on land that is currently underused, and to employ science and technology to improve the efficiency and productivity of farming enterprises.

In both these solutions, Africa takes centre stage. It is the only continent suited to commercial agriculture with underutilised land. Neither Europe nor North America has spare land available.

PRODUCING MORE FOOD ON LESS LAND

Over the last 40 years, precision farming, advanced genetics, feeding systems, animal health controls and other technologies have enabled industrialised countries to