By 
Pierre Jacquemot is a former French ambassador to Ghana and Kenya and a former director of development at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his new book, Se nourrir, le défi de l’Afrique (Feeding itself, Africa’s challenge), Jacquemot looks at what has gone wrong in African agriculture – and what the continent can do to fix it. He talks to Hichem Ben Yaïche.
Why publish a book on the question of food, an issue addressed by many African academics and institutions?
The idea came from the realisation that Africa will have to feed a population of two and a half billion over the next few decades. There are already major food-related challenges, particularly in terms of child malnutrition.
I’ve tried to answer this question: ‘How can we produce more healthy quality products in sufficient quantity for a growing population, but on land that is limited in terms of land ownership and has little scope for expansion?’ In fact, this land is often degraded and can fall victim to climatic hazards, as is currently the case with flooding or insects.
What has gone wrong, despite Africa’s resources and wealth?
First, the colonial heritage – although we won’t dwell on this well-known issue – explains this situation. It is part of the explanation for Africa’s difficulty in feeding itself. When you produce coffee, cocoa, palm oil, soya or groundnuts instead of food-producing activities, you are unlikely able to satisfy the needs of the people.
And when you devote a large proportion of your imports to buying rice or turkey from Asia or Europe, you are not enabling national agriculture to meet the needs of the population from its own resources.
Africa needs to bring about a structural transformation of its agriculture and its eating habits. The upheavals in the world of agriculture are changing the way we produce. Agro-ecological production techniques using seeds and fertilisers adapted to the realities of the farming world are the most appropriate.
The peasant economy has considerable resources at its disposal. They are now offering alternative solutions to help combat the consequences of global warming. For example, keeping water on the land for longer after the rainy season. These are micro experiments, but they are significant. There’s nothing to stop us looking at things on a regional scale to meet the needs of as many people as possible.
One of the fundamental rules that needs to be re-established is that of diversification. You have to know how to play with different agricultural options when you are faced with climatic hazards that could damage your production and give yourself the opportunity to switch to other options. The Covid-19 pandemic was a good example of this: restrictions on the mobility of men and women meant that we had to find ways of feeding ourselves on a small scale while remaining in good health. The Ukrainian crisis then triggered a dizzying rise in the price of cereals and fertilisers. It was also an opportunity to look for autonomous solutions, particularly in the direction of local cereals .
But in this new Africa, what are the trajectories that give cause for optimism?
There are plenty. When we go out into the field, we meet agricultural engineers, specialists and researchers who tell us that there are many opportunities linked to new agricultural practices. Rural electrification, for example, is making a huge difference. Thanks to it, children can study after dark; village hydraulics are becoming possible; so are agricultural processing and refrigeration. Mechanical maintenance workshops were set up. These are major changes for the villagers.
The mobile phone has become an instrument of banking in the rural world. It is also an agricultural insurance tool, enabling remote farmers to take out insurance against drought and predators. Agricultural banks did not reach rural areas. Today, digital technology is completely overturning access to rural credit.
Another factor for change is the slow but irreversible empowerment of women in relation to the constraints of patriarchy and the household. They cultivate their own plots of land, sometimes collectively. They go to the market; they take care of the processing; they invent an intelligent, nutritious cuisine based on local cereals, legumes and fruit. Over the last twenty years, they have been able to conquer a space of autonomy, which is changing the agricultural and food situation.
As part of a strategy for change, should governments also make their contribution?
States are obliged to allocate 10% of their budget to the agricultural sector, a directive issued by the African Union that is hardly ever respected in practice. Behind this lack of commitment on the part of governments, we continue to witness the under-valuing of agriculture and the rural world, and a lack of consideration on the part of political elites. This is not just a problem in Africa.
There is fierce global competition for land. In Africa, arable land is so coveted that it is difficult to resolve all the climatic, political and environmental threats facing the continent. How can this be resolved?
There are still processes of land grabbing by foreign countries and certain statesmen. The most productive land, of course. This remains a problem. Half of the land grabbed is uncultivated.
More fundamentally, it must be said that the possibilities for increasing agricultural land and conquering new land are relatively limited in Africa, contrary to popular belief. The reasons for this lie in the constraints associated with desertification, the existence of forests, the rangelands used by livestock farmers and the serious degradation of the land.
When we analyse the quality of this available land, we realise that there are around 100 million additional hectares that could potentially be farmed. The real figure is perhaps closer to 50 million hectares. Under these conditions, we need to produce more and intensify on the plots of land that already exist, rather than thinking that we are going to conquer new land.
To modernise this sector and attract investment, we are seeing players such as the ADB and the FAO becoming involved. How important are they?
You must realise that agriculture has never been a top priority for international or regional funding institutions. The reason is that the return on investment in this sector is always long. Changing farming practices, changing production methods, uprooting cocoa plants to grow food crops takes a long time. And time is not the banker’s time.
The second problem is that of collateral. Land is often not privately owned, but communally owned in many situations. What interests the banker is having a guarantee, a surety. So, we have to come up with other solutions that give bankers assurances that their loans will be paid off.
With your experience as a diplomat, can you detach yourself from France’s African policy?
Speaking of changing cycles, we are witnessing a transformation in the relationship between Africa and France, Africa and Europe, and Africa and the rest of the world. We are seeing a new desire for emancipation, which is a continuation of the desire for emancipation that began in the 1960s. We hear words like decoloniality, which demonstrate the aspirations of Africans towards a paradigm shift, a claim to identity, the desire to emancipate themselves, to free themselves from Western paternalism.
We need to rely on countries’ own capacities, through democratic and freedom of expression and opinion, to find local solutions that enable us to establish or build endogenous solutions adapted to the continent.
This does not exclude maintaining good relations with other countries. What I have experienced in the strong relations between France and Africa are the cultural relations. The promotion of African culture in all its forms – music, dance, theatre, etc. – is a key element. The only viable policy that should exist is the policy of mutual interest, solidarity and mutual aid.
Is it still too early to understand the true face of the new Franco-African cooperation?
It’s in a state of flux, with players trying to move towards a balanced, mutually fruitful relationship. Young people in urban areas are making strong demands, and they can’t find the means to satisfy their expectations in Africa. They are strongly committed to the fight to regain their lost identity. They are demanding greater rights and respectability.
As for France, it is to be hoped that it does not turn towards a frigid, conspiracy-minded and conservative withdrawal, as some might hope when they hear absurd words about immigration. We can hope that my country, France, will remain open to foreigners and will be attentive, welcoming, hospitable and curious with its neighbours across the Mediterranean.
Does France have the energy today for a different kind of engagement with Africa?
Yes, I’m optimistic, as I am about food and agriculture. The current changes should enable France to open up to Africa in a more intelligent and less condescending way. My country must not give in to certain stupid attitudes. France needs to change the way it looks at Africa and adopt a much more flexible attitude, open to the future, to build on new foundations, redefine Franco-African relations with intelligent solutions and abandon any paternalistic relationship.
Comments