Task Force 1: Availability and Sustainability of Improved Agricultural Technology for Sub-Saharan Africa

摘要

In the introductory part of this meeting, we acknowledged that world population is persistently increasing at a rate of about one billion people every decade. The population of Africa is doubling approximately every 20-23 years. Given this very high rate of population growth, it becomes imperative to increase food production, particularly if we acknowledge the fact that Africa's population is mostly rural, and one way to improve the standard of living of the rural population is to give them access tohigh agricultural productivity. Recent experiences from a number of countries that have achieved significant agricultural production increases show that these increases resulted from the application of technical innovations. These innovations largely consisted of the use of improved seed, the application of moderate levels of fertilizer, and better crop husbandry practices at the farm level, coupled with changes in economic policies at the highest level to sustain farm productivity. What is also importart is that increased productivity of land offers the opportunity to release marginal land from production (such land, by definition, has a very low level of productivity). Increased productivity also helps prevent subsistence farmers from further encroaching on land that is unsuitable for agricultural production. We could reserve such land for other uses — forestry or wildlife conservation, for example, or other activities that would assist in protecting the environment.