Q&A with Betty Kibaara: Innovations that can deliver “good food” for Africa

Abstract

Betty Kibaara, director in the Food Initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation Africa Regional Office, recently spoke with One Earth about the wave of challenges hitting Africa’s food systems and the solutions from farm to fork that can support consistent access to sustainable, healthy, and inclusive diets. The views expressed by Ms. Kibaara are hers only and not necessarily those of the Rockefeller Foundation. Betty Kibaara, director in the Food Initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation Africa Regional Office, recently spoke with One Earth about the wave of challenges hitting Africa’s food systems and the solutions from farm to fork that can support consistent access to sustainable, healthy, and inclusive diets. The views expressed by Ms. Kibaara are hers only and not necessarily those of the Rockefeller Foundation. Africa’s food systems are under enormous pressure. A combination of external shocks and long-standing challenges are collectively undermining the ability of the region’s food systems to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. They include a rise in extreme weather events and other climate-related impacts; recurrent outbreaks of crop pests and diseases; a global spike in commodity and fertilizer prices caused by the war in Ukraine; and limited availability and adoption of yield-increasing technologies on local farms. Africa currently bears the world’s heaviest burden of malnutrition. Over 20 percent of the continent’s population (roughly 257 million people) are undernourished. Every night at least 1 in 5 Africans goes to bed hungry. The most recent Biennial Review (2019–2021) from the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) warned that Africa was not on track to meet its goal of ending hunger by 2025. And since then, the situation has only worsened. In 2022, over 20 million people and at least 10 million children faced severe food shortages in Africa due to crop failures linked to four consecutive dry seasons. East Africa was hit by the worst drought in 40 years and the suffering was compounded by a lack of response capacity. Farming households lost close to 2 million livestock and at least 36 million people were facing hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. We’re also seeing a sharp rise in food insecurity and malnutrition in west and central Africa. It’s on track to reach a 10-year high. Then there are worrisome projections from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa that Africa’s food import costs could soon surge by a factor of seven: they were $15 billion in 2018 and could rise to $110 billion by 2025. Agriculture in Africa is dominated by small-scale farmers who rely on family labor. About 80% of all farms in Africa are less than 2 hectares in size and they’re responsible for 80% of Africa’s food production. But the dominant role of small-scale farmers in food production stands in sharp contrast to their marginal political and economic power. In the competition for natural resources, they struggle to defend their rights against more powerful forces. They find it challenging to influence policymaking. Their incomes and production capacity are often undermined by poor access to market information, capital, inputs, and technical advice—along with the skills required to manage complex enterprises. There also can be ethnic, religious, and gender issues that further diminish their standing in social, economic, and political arenas against better-resourced and influential interest groups. Meanwhile, climate change is steadily intensifying the challenge of being a smallholder farmer. Weather extremes are becoming more common. There’s an increase in droughts—and also in torrential downpours that cause soil erosion and damage crops. Rising temperatures add to water challenges by increasing evaporation rates. Yet as the losses accumulate for smallholder farmers, large commercial farms—which have the financial resources to afford irrigation and other coping strategies—will be making more profits than ever. Precolonial African societies were able to diversify and safeguard their domestic needs during their early maritime trade with Europe. However, the colonial system decimated domestic food production systems, supply chains, and markets. Growing demand from industries in Europe and North America drove exponential growth in export crops at the expense of food security. In western Africa, over a 70-year period from 1870 to 1940, exports to Britain doubled five times and exports to France doubled three times. The growth in export crop production was driven by colonial demand rather than farmers responding to domestic market opportunities. Colonialists also forced Africans to grow non-edible crops that were labor intensive. That shifted much needed labor capacity away from domestic food production that would have fed multiple families and ensured their food security. Monocropping, which was also introduced during colonial times, reduced fallowing and depleted soil fertility and yields. The damage to African farms is still being felt today. During this period, cassava and maize—fast-growing, high-calories crops with low labor requirements—replaced more nutritious staples. A singular focus on maize production in particular has increased calorie intake, but it also has contributed to making malnutrition endemic. In sub-Saharan Africa, food loss and waste are estimated to be at roughly 37% of production, equal to about 120 to 170 kilos of food per person every year. The annual value of post-harvest grain loss in sub-Saharan Africa is US$ 4 billion, which exceeds the value of total food aid that the region has received over the past decade. The large majority of this food is lost between harvest and the point of sale. Post-harvest loss occurs owing to inadequate post-harvest management, lack of structured markets, inadequate storage in households and on farms, and limited processing capacity. The negative impacts ripple across the food system from farm to fork. They diminish farmer income by about 15% or more. It means that the water, fertilizers, energy, and land used to produce all that lost food is squandered as well. It increases pressures to boost food production to meet Africa’s rapidly growing population by expanding into fragile ecosystems, which accelerates deforestation and species extinction. It’s already contributed to rising hunger. About 795 million people go hungry in the world today. We’re losing enough food every year to feed twice that many. There are climate costs as well. Food loss and waste is linked to about 8%–10% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Rockefeller Foundation’s YieldWise Initiative was an effort to address the problem, primarily by targeting losses that occur in farmer’s fields in addition to those that occur during storage, processing, and distribution. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 30% of the food or human consumption is lost somewhere along this “value chain.” YieldWise also targeted food waste—food that is thrown away by retailers or consumers. The Initiative was implemented in different value chains in three African countries: mangoes in Kenya, maize in Tanzania, and tomatoes and cassava in Nigeria. Overall, it’s important for African governments to approach reducing food loss and waste as an economic opportunity. With the majority of Africans working in agriculture, the high costs associated with food loss and waste means that solving the problem has tremendous potential to enhance regional economic growth and individual livelihoods. I lead The Rockefeller Foundation’s partnership with the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE). Our goal is to take their research from the lab to the land. ICIPE research showed that black soldier flies are a potential source of sustainable and nutritious animal feed that could ease the pressures to divert plant and animal proteins to livestock production. High-quality proteins are a critical component of meat and egg production and livestock feeds are often derived from plant sources, such as soybeans, and animal sources, particularly fish meal. It’s yet another factor contributing to unsustainable land use and overfishing, while it also puts livestock production in competition with people for essential nutrients. Black soldier flies offer a potentially appealing way to address all of these negative outcomes. The World Bank estimates that black soldier fly production in Africa alone could generate over 60 million tons of insect-based animal feed annually. But the benefits don’t stop there. They can produce this feed all while recycling over 200 million tons of organic waste—because that’s essentially what serves as fly food. Meanwhile, the waste generated by blackfly production could provide some 60 million tons of organic fertilizer. Fertilizers from blackfly production—known as frass fertilizer—can be further treated to boost their capacity to improve soil health, crop yields, and farmers’ income. Frass fertilizer is also considerably cheaper than synthetic fertilizer, and far more climate friendly. Synthetic fertilizer production is a notable source of carbon emissions. Given the worrying food-security trends, Africa’s food systems must strive to become more resilient while guaranteeing access to healthy and affordable diets for all. There are a number of strategies that can help achieve this goal—and strong evidence backing their potential to drive progress. For example, African food systems should pivot away from a focus on major global commodities—rice, wheat, and maize—and invest in a diversity of African Indigenous and resilient crops including sorghum, millets, teff, and cassava. Investment in irrigation infrastructure is critical. Most African farms rely on rain-fed food production, which impedes efforts to adapt to recurrent droughts and other challenges caused by climate change. We must increase the availability of clean, renewable energy in rural Africa. The lack of sustainable energy sources is a major contributor to deforestation and exposure to climate-related problems. Governments must develop policies that encourage the financial sector to provide business support to small- and medium-sized agriculture enterprises. Early-warning systems and associated climate advisories are essential for providing insights that enable farmers to anticipate and adapt to climate-related challenges. The global food system is unhealthy, unsustainable, and inequitable. It’s also just a bad bargain financially. The global food industry is estimated to be worth US $9 trillion. Much of this revenue is generated by a singular focus on yield and calories. That narrow approach to feeding the planet has produced a host of health and environmental problems and inequalities that collectively cost society an estimated US $19.8 trillion. If the global food system was a company, it would be bankrupt. Our current strategy focuses on fundamentally changing this system to recognize the true cost of food and to prioritize “good food”—food that is nourishing, regenerative, and equitably produced and distributed. Our true cost of food analysis shows that investing public and private capital in good food will ultimately deliver substantial returns in the form of better health, lower emissions, and greater equity. Our 10-year goal is to improve the dietary quality of 500 million underserved people by supporting equitable and regenerative food systems that give them access to affordable good food. To support this shift, we are refocusing our work to capitalize on opportunities in public food procurement programs and on targeted data and policy initiatives. Institutional procurement for school meals, hospitals, and food assistance programs can have a particularly large impact on the types of food that are produced on local farms and sold and consumed across the food system. These programs also often reach people at the most vulnerable and formative times in their lives. It makes them a critical channel for improving dietary quality, promoting sustainable production practices, and improving overall equity in the food system. We have launched a global food purchasing partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) spanning 7 countries (Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Ghana, Benin, India, and Honduras). This will help vulnerable school children get better access to nutritious food through school feeding programs. The project will also promote local food production, benefiting smallholder farmers and providing school cooks with information on optimal nutrition for children. In Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania, we’re working with AGRA, an NGO commited to sustainably growing Africa’s food systems, on a project to incorporate high-iron beans and vitamin-A-rich maize into school meal programs. This can help alleviate the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in school-age children. The author declares no competing interests.