• by Pascal Lamy
• Tuesday, March 01, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Why did Africa move from being a net exporter to a net importer of food in the 1980s when the prices of its key commodity exports tumbled and its agriculture slowed down? Its food trade deficit is now around USD 20 billion and, given the current rise in prices, could get much worse, writes Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

African agriculture has been shackled by: first, colonial patterns of trade that have locked Africa into commodity exports; and second, macroeconomic and trade policies aimed at import substitution and food self-sufficiency that have achieved the exact opposite of their goal. In taxing agriculture and shielding it from international competition, these policies made African agriculture less competitive.

African agriculture has clearly passed through various phases: state control and import substitution in the 1960s, when Africa's food deficit started building; then the structural adjustment era of the 1980s, marked by the gradual privatisation of state-owned farms; and then the dismantling of marketing boards for key commodities. Nonetheless, Africa's food deficit has persisted. What preoccupies me the most, however, is that its agricultural productivity continues to languish.

(*) Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES//

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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