In an interview with Forbes Africa, Makhtar Diop confided that Africa faces several factors that are hampering the development Of agriculture. The director general of the IFC (International Finance Corporation, a subsidiary of the World Bank dedicated to financing the private sector) tried to explain the major challenges hindering Africa’s agricultural potential.
According to him, agriculture is generally perceived, in this continent, as a risky sector, without collateral or guarantee, particularly with climatic fluctuations which affect production.
“Moreover, traditional development banks that finance agriculture are often undercapitalized. And most of their financing is allocated to cash crops (cocoa, peanuts, etc.), which leaves very little money to finance other sectors such as vegetables, cereals or legumes, whose added value is however much higher. Secondly, there is an infrastructure problem in the sector, and the evacuation of production is a problem in most African countries. Rural road programs remain insufficient to improve the situation, and evacuation remains generally constrained by the lack of suitable infrastructure,” he confided in the interview used by Senego.
The former vice-president of the World Bank for Infrastructure adds that there is “a big problem of access to land with regulations around property whose regimes vary depending on the country, and which often generates numerous Conflicts. In French-speaking countries, the default is that the State, with the law on national domain, owns the land and gives it to the communities. Of course a certain number of reforms have been undertaken, but none have been carried out to find the right balance between small peasant property and large commercial cultivation. However, to develop a country, you need both: small-scale peasant production, particularly important in the African context, which must be integrated into value chains, but also commercial agriculture, which must also be attracted and for which questions related to land management are essential.”
The Senegalese also says he has observed a problem with technology and innovation. Because, he emphasizes, agriculture in Africa is still largely the work of small producers who do not have the necessary resources to invest in technology that would allow them to increase their productivity.
“Another important point is the regulatory framework and economic policies, which are generally not very stable. However, having a minimum of visibility is particularly important for long-term investors in a sector where the return on investment is long. This lack of stability therefore affects the capacity and willingness of certain investors to finance agriculture. Another point linked to infrastructure and market access, the lack of extension services, known as agricultural extension services. [ensemble des organisations qui facilitent et soutiennent les personnes engagées dans des activités agricoles pour résoudre les problèmes et obtenir des informations, des compétences et des technologies afin d’améliorer leurs moyens de subsistance et leur bien-être, NDLR]. It is generally the State which is responsible for this, but with limited resources, which does not allow farmers to have the necessary service to be able to increase their production and productivity. Not to mention that the level of training and education in the rural world being much lower than in the urban world, we are dealing with people who are less qualified and therefore less able to adapt these technologies and techniques which are so important for the development of agriculture. And all this, unfortunately, in a context where gender inequality is still strong – particularly in the rural sector –, depriving women of access to land and the capital necessary to integrate certain segments of agricultural production.”
