Response to the Food Crisis in Southern Africa

e need to increase productivity in agriculture continued as a matter of concern to all member States in the sub-region to provide food to all. e food crisis in Southern Africa drew national, sub-regional, international and individual atten-tion to assist with food aid and other forms of assistance.

National and consolidated sub-regional appeals with the assistance of UN sys-tems, donor partners, and NGOs were made at the highest level of ECOSOC.

SADC was at the centre of all these activities. e appeals, in addition to provid-ing immediate food relief and humanitarian aid for water, sanitation, health and nutrition also focused on emergency provision of agricultural inputs to enable those affected by the food crisis to restart agricultural production during 2002-2003.

At the initial launch of the international appeal by ECOSOC in July 2002, the six Southern African countries most affected needed over $US 600 million to meet the urgent food and non-food needs over the next twelve months. By end

of August 2002, about 22 per cent of the money was contributed by several donor countries and organizations to help with the food and non-food needs in the six affected countries. By end of September, there were pledges amounting to 36 per cent of the needed resources while WFP was confident in securing a further 30 per cent, leaving a gap of 34 per cent. e SADC Summit held in Luanda, Angola, from 1-3 October 2002, noted with appreciation the efforts made by WFP to address the food crisis and humanitarian situation in Southern Africa. e Summit urged member States and the SADC Secretariat to continue to take concerted measures to tackle the medium- and long-term challenges posed by the food crisis.

In addressing the issues of food shortages in Africa, Michael Abu Sakara Foster and Abel Lufafa argue that if productivity could be increased substantively among those food crops that many poor people grow, poverty would diminish and Africa can achieve food security.¹ Agricultural intensification is one of the components for addressing food security. ey correctly indicate that measures needed to ensure future food security go beyond issues of agricultural intensification alone.

Foster and Lufafa put emphasis on agricultural development to encompass much broader objectives for rural development and address the full scope of rural liveli-hood opportunities.

ere have been some success stories on small-scale agriculture that go unnoticed, but would go a long way to improve food security, as well as increase income gen-eration. An example here would be the Machobane Farming System (MFS) in Lesotho. MFS promotes self-sufficiency and income generation. rough MFS, a farmer can harvest up to six crops from a small plot. MFS also encourages diversification of income-generating activities including poultry farming.

Many countries have come to realize the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture and food security. In February 2002, the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation in Malawi observed that farmers and farm workers were dying from infections and this reduced crop production and resulted in food shortages. He noted that the greatest loss was felt amongst agricultural field assistants whose numbers had sig-nificantly reduced. Crash courses to train more farm assistants have been intro-duced. HIV/AIDS education programmes in rural areas are reported to have intensified. In Zambia, the National Farmers Union (NFU), in collaboration with FAO and the National AIDS Council (NAC), has embarked on a commu-nication strategy targeting small-scale farmers in order to bring about behavioural change regarding HIV/AIDS, through workshops and dramas.

8 Michael Abu Sakara Foster and Abel Lufafa, “Agriculture Intensification: Feeding Ourselves and Sustaining Africa’s Land Resources in the New Millennium”. Paper presented at the ECA Second Meeting of the Committee on Sustainable Development (CSD), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 26 – 29 November 2001.

Some specific lessons aimed at addressing the issue of food insecurity in Southern Africa emphasize, inter alia, the following needs:

a) To improve and strengthen the capacity of the SADC Disaster Manage-ment mechanism and National Disaster ManageManage-ment Unit;

b) To strengthen early warning systems on disaster by providing informa-tion for timely decision making to farmers and other stakeholders;

c) To address medium- to long-term policy issues on farm inputs, pricing and rehabilitation of infrastructure, marketing, and ensuring strategic grain reserves by member States;

d) Concrete action by member States to expand irrigation in order to ensure food security. Some countries, including Malawi and Zambia, have started taking such action;

e) To implement the SADC Food Security Policy and other similar policy frameworks developed to improve food security in the sub-region;

f) To address HIV/AIDS as an integral component for addressing poverty and food security; and

g) To encourage crop diversification from maize to other crops; and h) To promote the growing of drought-tolerant and low-input crops

(cas-sava and sweet potato) in order to change eating habits and to avoid rely-ing on only one staple crop.

3.4 Industry

Industrial development is the key to effective utilization of natural resources. e main thrust of the industry sector is to develop industrial capacity while fully using local natural resources.

In Southern Africa, the manufacturing industry continued to face challenges from foreign competition and limited financial resources. However, some coun-tries secured industrial growth in 2000-2001, notably Lesotho (11.8 per cent), Mozambique (7.8 per cent), Angola (7.9 per cent) and Botswana (5.7 per cent).

In South Africa, overall industrial production of the country stood at 7 per cent in 2001, from 5 per cent recorded in 2000. is was a clear reflection of the advanced and diversified technology in the South African industrial sector, including the mining sub-sector.

e manufacturing industry in Southern Africa, as in most other sub-regions, continued to be dominated by textile and food and beverage processing industries.

ese sub-sectors are directly and indirectly dependent on the agricultural sector.

e direct effect of agriculture on industry is through the availability of agricultural raw materials for industrial processing, while the indirect effect is the availability of

foreign exchange for the import of inputs and new investments. With the agricul-tural sector performance remaining stagnant in most Southern African countries in 2001, the two sub-sectors reflected this stagnation. In Zimbabwe, for instance, the crisis in the agricultural sector significantly constrained industrial production, which has been on the decline for the last three years or so. In 2001, industrial production dropped by 10 per cent after a decline of 6 per cent in 2000.

In addition, high interest rates for borrowers continued to impact negatively on both working and investment capital, thereby increasing production costs of the manufacturing industry. is situation has rendered local manufacturers in some countries unable to compete effectively with respect to the production of goods and services.

In mineral-rich countries, performance of the mining industry is closely related to international fluctuation of mineral prices. In 2001, the mining industry was hurt by the decline in commodity prices of the country’s exports, which con-strained imports of raw material, spare parts and new machinery for investment.

Current programmes of the industry sector in Southern Africa are focused on the preparation of a regional industrial policy and strategies that would best promote industrial development in the sub-region. Some of the main concerns being addressed by the regional industrial policy framework include those related to the effects of trade liberalization on local industries.