Food Security

With most of its people engaged in agriculture, Africa is a continent of farmers. Africa also, paradoxically, is a continent of hunger: with a third of its people suffering from malnutrition, it is the largest food-deficit region in the world. Here are some telling facts:

• 70 percent of Africa's people are engaged in agriculture.
• One of every three people in Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from malnutrition.
• Worldwide, per-capita food production has increased by 20 percent since 1975. In Africa, total food production has increased but food production per-capita has dropped by 10 percent, due to factors such as growth in population and erosion of the natural resource base.
• Sub-Saharan Africa has 13 percent of the population of the developing world ― but 25 percent of the malnourished people.

In addition to malnutrition, food insecurity results in a wide range of other health problems as well as environmental degradation and poverty. Conversely, to the extent that food security improves, most facets of life in rural Africa improve as well.

 

Statistics, FAO ("State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006").

 

(Updated, Dec. 19, 2007)