Sub-Saharan countries include the 48 independent countries that lie south of the Sahara desert, excluding South Africa, because its agriculture system reflects that of developed countries.

1. Agricultural Geography
Peter Mulenge, University of Nairobi-College of Education and External Studies E35/3309/2012
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Sub-Saharan countries include the 48 independent countries that lie south of the Sahara Desert,
excluding South Africa, because its agriculture system reflects that of developed countries.
In these countries, agriculture is the largest sector in most economies in employment, and plays
an important role in supplying food and export earnings. The majority of Sub-Saharan Africa’s
population lives in rural areas, where poverty and deprivation are most severe. Since almost all
rural households depend directly or indirectly on agriculture, and given the large contribution of
the sector to the overall economy, one might expect agriculture to be a key component of
economic growth and development. However, whereas agriculture-led economic growth played
an important role in slashing poverty and transforming the economies of many Asian and Latin
American countries, the same has not occurred in Africa.
Most African countries have not yet met the criteria for a successful agricultural revolution since
agricultural development strategies vary widely because of heterogeneity (to mean that
agriculture may in many situations be too interlinked with other economic and cultural activities
on the continent, as well as with economic and political conditions outside of it) across and
within the Sub-Saharan countries to be meaningfully dealt with in isolation. This failure has led
to growing skepticism in the international development community about the relevance of
agriculture to economic growth and poverty reduction.
Agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains low and is falling farther behind
other regions of the world. Although agricultural output growth in the region has accelerated
since the 1990s, this has been primarily due to resource expansion rather than to higher
productivity. Yet there is evidence that agricultural productivity growth has improved in some
countries. Enhanced productivity is correlated with investments in agricultural research, wider
adoption of new technologies, and policy reforms that have strengthened economic incentives to
farmers.

2. 2
2.0 AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
For the past half-century, SSA’s population has been growing at an annual rate of nearly 2.7
percent, and it is projected to increase another 1.3 times between 2010 and 2050 (United Nations
medium projections, 2010). Because the proportion of the young in the population has remained
relatively high, the SSA region has a high dependency ratio (the ratio of the nonworking to the
working population). This account for relatively low household saving rates observed in SSA
compared with those of other developing regions and partly explains the low investment in the
region (Ndulu et al., 2007).
Productivity growth in agriculture is a driver of economic development and poverty reduction in
low-income countries. Some of the lowest levels of agricultural land and labor productivity in
the world are found in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a consequence, this region suffers from high rates
of extreme poverty and food insecurity (unless otherwise noted, Sub-Saharan Africa, or SSA,
refers to the 48 independent nations that lie south of the Sahara Desert, except South Africa,
which is excluded here since much of its agricultural system mirrors that of a developed
country). Boosting agricultural productivity in the region would not only raise the income of
farm households--which make up over half the region’s population--but would also lower food
costs for the nonfarm population, which spends most of its income on food. This would also
promote broader economic growth by stimulating demand for nonfarm goods and services,
creating a surplus for public and private investment, saving foreign exchange, and freeing
resources, such as labor, for the growth of nonfarm economic sectors. Through these
mechanisms, improving agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa is an important strategy
for creating inclusive economic development and reducing extreme poverty.
Agricultural growth contributes to broader economic growth and poverty alleviation through:
•The direct effects of the growth on those who participate in farming, either as farmers or
as farm laborers.
•Increased upstream demand for inputs and downstream demand for marketing and
processing that accompany expanded agricultural production (production linkages, both
backward and forward).
•Flows of capital and labor from agriculture to other sectors (factor-market linkages), as
profits generated in agriculture are invested by individuals and communities in other sectors and

3. Agricultural Geography
Peter Mulenge, University of Nairobi-College of Education and External Studies E35/3309/2012
in infrastructure to generate increased real incomes and employment (via investment and fiscal
linkages) and labor flows, often seasonally, between sectors depending on relative rates of return.
•The impact that expanded agricultural production has on lowering staple food prices and
hence wage rates (the wage good effect), which in turn encourages expansion of output and
employment in other sectors.
•The increase in incomes and employment in other sectors resulting from increased
demand emanating from farmers whose incomes are rising due to expanded agricultural
production (consumption linkages).
•Potentially increased productivity resulting from better worker nutrition and increased
efficiency of investment resulting from greater macroeconomic and political stability that
accompanies a more reliable food system (productivity linkages), Mellor et al. (2006).
2.1 Agricultural productivity in the Sub-Saharan countries
Most people in sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas (61.4%), and most Africans work in
agriculture (57.3%), according to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAOSTAT). As the numbers make clear, agriculture remains the primary source of livelihoods
for the majority of households in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these households operate their
own farms; relatively few people are employed as agricultural wage workers. Farm size is
extremely small in most African production settings, with almost all land holdings under 5
hectares (Eastwood et al., 2004, p. 8). In many countries, land holdings are even smaller. For
instance, Malawi’s 2006-07 National Census of Agriculture and Livestock found that only 8% of
land holdings were 2 hectares or larger. In Rwanda’s 2008 National Agricultural Survey, the
comparable figure was 6% of holdings of 2 ha or more (National Institute of Statistics 2010, p.
36). Even in relatively land-abundant Mozambique, 95% of farm holdings were smaller than 4 ha
in the 2009-10 agricultural census (Instituto Nacional de Estatística-Moçambique 2011, p. 13).
By contrast, in the European Union’s 27 member countries, average farm size in 2007 was 12.6
ha, with 30 percent of farms larger than 5 ha (Eurostat Farm Structure Survey 2007). Much
higher average farm sizes prevailed in the United Kingdom (53.8 ha), France (52.1 ha), Germany
(45.7 ha), Netherlands (25.0 ha), and Spain (23.9 ha).The US average in 2010 was 169 ha (US
Department of Agriculture 2011, p. 9).

4. 4
Small farm size and low productivity are not synonymous – at least when productivity is
measured relative to land inputs. In many Asian developing countries, small farms achieve
extremely high levels of productivity, measured in output per unit land. It is common for small
farms to reach levels of output per unit of land that are higher than those attained on large farms
– an issue that we will consider in greater detail below. But the small size of sub-Saharan farms
does generally correspond to low levels of output per worker. This is largely an arithmetic
consequence of the fact that most farms are operated by family labor, with hours worked per
farm varying much less across countries than does land area per farm. Both micro data and
aggregate data suggest that agricultural output per worker in sub-Saharan economies is very low.
For instance, Gollin et al. (2014) show that labor productivity in agriculture is far lower than in
non-agriculture for a large set of developing countries, including many sub-Saharan African
countries. In a number of countries, agricultural output per worker appears to be only one-third
to one-fourth the level of non-agriculture, even after adjusting for differences in human capital,
hours worked, and other potential sources of measurement error.
Taking an arithmetic average across 30 sub-Saharan African countries, Gollin et al. (2014) find
that agricultural labor productivity seems to be only 28% of non-agricultural labor productivity.
In an accounting sense, this low level of agricultural productivity explains a large part of the
disparities in income between sub-Saharan countries and the world’s rich countries. These
countries are closer to rich country levels of productivity in non-agriculture than in agriculture,
yet they have large fractions of their labor force employed in the low productivity sector.

5. Agricultural Geography
Peter Mulenge, University of Nairobi-College of Education and External Studies E35/3309/2012
2.2 Poverty and food security
Poverty is higher in most African countries than elsewhere in the developing world. In Sub-
Saharan Africa (SSA) 50 per cent of the total population or 300 million people live on less than 1
USD per day. Worse, the number of poor people has grown in the 1990s causing SSA’s share of
the world’s absolute poor to increase from 25 to 30 per cent. SSA with 11 per cent of the global
population has an estimated 73 per cent of global HIV/AIDS related infections. So far 20 million
Africans have died of HIV/AIDS, 10 million children have been orphaned and many families
have lost their labor supply as adults have fallen ill or died (World Bank, 2002).The prevalence
of widespread chronic poverty and human disease is linked to the weak economic performance
of SSA countries. While in 1970 SSA’s GDP was higher than Brazil’s, today it is only one fourth
the size of Brazil’s GDP. Unlike in other developing regions, Africa’s average output per capita
in constant prices was lower at the end of the 1990s than 30 years before and in some countries
had fallen by more than 50 per cent. Africa’s share in world trade has decreased since the 1960s
and today SSA accounts for less than 2 per cent of world trade. While developing countries in
other regions have diversified, SSA remains an exporter of primary products (World Bank,
2000), lacking the capacity to add value to these.
In its strengths, families in areas which used to experience hunger due to drought and famine
have had substantial amount of food through irrigation of dry lands and reclamation of new
lands. This has enabled an elevated food policy although there is much needed to ensure both the
private and public projects won’t collapse in time.
In line with its share in total world trade, the relative share of African agricultural exports in
world markets has fallen from 8 per cent in the period 1971-1980 to 3.4 per cent in the period
1991-2000 with the value of exports growing extremely slowly. Since the 1960s, imports of
agricultural products have been rising faster than exports and Africa as a whole has become a net
agricultural importer since 1980. Africa’s dependence on food imports is highlighted by the food
aid received by African countries. In 2000, African countries received 2.8 million tons of food
aid, which is over a quarter of the world total (NEPAD, 2002).

6. 6
2.3 Provision of employment
For agricultural growth in SSA to lead to widespread poverty alleviation, it needs to be primarily
smallholder-based. Yet smallholders in Africa are very heterogeneous, with many of them
(perhaps the majority) lacking the resources to “farm their way out of poverty.” For these low-
resource farmers, agricultural growth is still crucial to pulling them out of poverty, but its impact
is indirect, through increasing the demand for agricultural labor, creating jobs in related sectors
that service agriculture (forward and backward linkages), providing the resources to invest in
education to foster migration out of farming, generating resources that are invested in other
sectors to create new jobs, and driving down the price of basic staples, thus increasing real
incomes and making it cheaper for entrepreneurs in other sectors to hire workers.
2.4 Supply of earnings through exports, Capital accumulations and the Supply of raw
materials to agro-industries and other sectors of the economy
Growth affects individuals differently owing to heterogeneity across regions and households.
With different income sources and locations within a country, changes in in-come and
consumption across households differ considerably from average changes at the national level
(that is, per capita GDP or total consumption). To capture growth–poverty linkages within a
country, it is necessary to capture changes in the distribution of incomes, which are determined
primarily by country-specific initial conditions. For example, in some countries, agriculture
generates a large share of national GDP and many households live in rural regions dominated by
agriculture. For these households, participation in agricultural activities is often the major source
of income, and hence they are likely to benefit more from agriculture-led growth than
nonagricultural growth. Households with greater opportunities to work in the urban sector or
who can take advantage of nearby city markets to produce higher-value agricultural products,
may concentrate closer to urban centers and be better positioned to benefit from nonagricultural
sectors or export agriculture. Since such households are usually less poor than remoter
households, economic growth driven by nonagricultural sectors may have less impact on poverty
reduction. For example, according to the Rwandan national household survey conducted in
2000–01, agriculture accounts for 50 percent of household in-come at the national level, whereas
it ac-counts for 75 percent for the average poor household. The importance of agricultural

7. Agricultural Geography
Peter Mulenge, University of Nairobi-College of Education and External Studies E35/3309/2012
incomes is even higher in poorer regions of the country. Under such circumstances, agricultural
growth is expected to be more pro-poor than nonagricultural growth because it is a more
important income source for the poor.
Agricultural growth can also benefit urban and landless or net food-buyer rural households if
rising agricultural productivity lowers food prices. This reduction in price is particularly
important for poor urban and rural households for whom food purchases are major items in their
expenditure baskets. For example, Ethiopia’s 1999–2000 national household survey showed that
poor urban households on average spend more than 50 percent of their total income on staple
foods, which is higher than the corresponding 30 percent for all urban households.
2.5 Livestock impact on economy
About 70% or 150 million of the rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa are at least partially dependent
on livestock to sustain their livelihoods (LID, 1999). Furthermore, Sub-Saharan Africa has the
largest area of permanent pasture of any continent, and the largest number of pastoralists (Ogle,
1996). Livestock production currently contributes about 35 per cent of agricultural GDP in Sub-
Saharan Africa and if non-food products and services were added this share would even be
higher (Ehui et al., 2002). Livestock production can contribute to poverty reduction in various
ways. It can increase food supply, serve as a source of income and a means for capital
accumulation, generate employment and supply inputs and services for crop production. Further,
non-market exchanges of livestock represent an important factor for social integration.
Through increased livestock production many poor smallholders would have direct access to
more livestock-derived food items, which are prime sources of easily absorbable iron, zinc, and
many other minerals as well as of vitamin B12, all essential for child growth and their cognitive
development (Neumann et al., 2003).
Livestock and livestock products are the most important cash ‘crop’ in many smallholder mixed
farming systems in SSA. Sales of livestock products such as milk, eggs and fiber generate a
constant stream of income and the sale of live animals, meat and hides produce substantial
sporadic income. Livestock also contribute to the stability of the incomes of farm households as
they act as a cash buffer (small stock), a capital reserve (large animals) and as a hedge against
inflation. The increase in weight of livestock over time and its reproductive capacity allow

8. 8
farmers gradually and continually to accumulate assets. Raising livestock is also often found to
be more profitable than saving money in a bank (if at all available) as net annual returns from
livestock are higher than interest rates (Slingerland, 2000).
In mixed farming systems livestock reduce the risks resulting from seasonal crop failures as they
add to the diversification of production and income sources. Livestock play a critical role in
process of the agricultural intensification through the provision of draught power and manure.
While draught animal use is declining worldwide this trend does not hold for SSA. Especially in
areas where mixed crop-livestock farming is practiced, increased use of animal traction can help
intensification and contribute to higher output (Sansoucy et al., 1995).
The integration of livestock and crops also allows for efficient recycling of crop residues and by-
products as animal feed and the use of animal manure as crop fertilizer. Livestock farming,
especially in the case of dairying, also generates employment. Apart from their important role for
the poor in rural areas, livestock have become increasingly important to the livelihoods of the
urban poor. The urban poor engage in livestock keeping as a response to limited alternative
livelihood options and food insecurity. Even though livestock keeping is usually not the main
occupation of urban households, livestock often have an important role for income generation.

9. Agricultural Geography
Peter Mulenge, University of Nairobi-College of Education and External Studies E35/3309/2012
3.0 CONCLUSIONS
An agriculture-led strategy of economic growth offers most countries of sub-Saharan Africa
(SSA) their best chance at rapid economic growth and poverty alleviation. Given the huge
heterogeneity of SSA, no single Asian-style green revolution is likely to drive that growth.
Rather, SSA will need to develop a series of differentiated agricultural revolutions suited to its
varied ecological niches and market opportunities. SSA faces unique organizational challenges in
fostering this growth, due to more weathered soils; much weaker infrastructure than other areas
of the world; highly heterogeneous social and linguistic systems; poor governance in some
countries; and a large number of small countries, which makes it difficult to achieve economies
of scale in some of the prime movers of agricultural development, such as agricultural research,
higher education, and market development and regulation.
This agriculture-led path out of poverty does not occur automatically simply if the agricultural
sector grows. It will require that agricultural growth be spread among a broad class of
smallholder entrepreneurs (to broaden the demand for labor-intensive goods) and that some of
that growth be tapped for investments in education, health, improved infrastructure, and better-
functioning labor markets. It will also require African governments and donors to link actions
effectively all the way from the local level to the continental level, in order to identify local
specificities in needs while capturing economies of scale in provision of key services. It will also
require massive resource mobilization, much of which will likely have to come from Africa
itself, implying the need for a policy environment favorable to Africans investing more of their
own resources in agriculture more productively than in the past in agriculture and the broader
agro-food system

10. 10
4.0 REFERENCES
 Eastwood, R. et al. (2008) Farm Size, Chapter 5 of R. Evenson and P. Pingali (eds) Handbook of
Agricultural Economics, vol. III, North Holland.
 Ehui, S. et al. (2002), Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa to 2020, Socio-economic and Policy Research
Working Paper 49, International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi
 Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Moçambique. (2011) Censo Agro-Pecuário CAP 2009-2010: Resultados
preliminaries. Maputo: Instituto Nacional de Estatística.
 Gollin, D. et al. (2014), Productivity, Transport Costs and Subsistence Agriculture: Journal of Development
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 Gollin, D., et al. (2014). The agricultural productivity gap, Quarterly Journal of Economics
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Proceedings. 92(2): 160-64
 LID (1999), Livestock in Poverty-Focused Development: Livestock in Development
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Middle-Income Countries?" Pakistan Development Review 45, no. 2: 179-200.
 NEPAD (2002), Agriculture Strategy – Underpinning Investments in African Agriculture and Market
Access
 Ndulu, B., et al. (2007). Challenges of African Growth: Opportunities, Constraints and Strategic Directions,
World Bank, Washington DC.
 Neumann, C.G. et al. (2003), Animal source foods improve dietary quality, micronutrient status,growth
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 Ogle, B. (1996), Livestock Systems in Semi-Arid Sub-Saharan Africa, Integrated Farming in Human
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 Sansoucy,R. et al. (1995), Keynote paper: The contribution of livestock to food security and sustainable
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 Stefan D. et al. (2014). Agriculture in African Development: A review of Theories and Strategies. Oxford
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 World Bank (2000), Can Africa claim the 21st century? World Bank, African Development Bank, United
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