BLOG POST: Food Systems Transformation in Africa: Lessons amid a Global Pandemic

Links between public health, food systems and socio-economic development

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the interconnectedness of global sustainability challenges, and how shocks and interventions in one system have far-reaching impacts on others. It has also reaffirmed the need for systems thinking and approaches to solve complex challenges. One example is the intersection between health and food systems, where interventions in the health system to curb the spread of the disease are having increasing effects on the food system.  

The pandemic has exposed the inadequacies in the global food system, highlighting the glaring inequalities across regions in food system resilience. These inefficiencies are particularly salient in African food systems, where the pandemic’s ripple-effects have significantly affected two dimensions—food supply chains and food security

The closing of borders and implementation of lockdowns have seen the rather fragile food supply chains in Africa truncated. Critical inputs (e.g. seeds, fertilizer, feeds) are in short supply. With current trade restrictions, agricultural production on the continent could contract between 2.6% and 7%. These disruptions will have a large economic impact in Africa where farming accounts for approximately 60% of employment. Furthermore, lockdowns have inhibited informal markets by limiting access for both producers and consumers. 

Food insecurity is not a new challenge in Africa. Before the pandemic, one in five Africans faced food insecurity. Undernourishment was high and about a third of children under five were short for their height. The pandemic will worsen the situation. Projections estimate that the pandemic could lead to more than a quarter of a billion people suffering acute hunger by the end of the year (2020). This is more than double the estimated number in the Global Report on Food Crises 2020 prepared prior to the pandemic. Africa will be disproportionately affected by these increases. For example, in South Africa during lockdown approximately 20% of households have inadequate or severe lack of access to food. In urban areas, 28% of households are at risk of hunger, and 26% are already experiencing hunger

Amid the pandemic, there are important questions to ask about the robustness and sustainability of African food systems. Looking ahead, it is necessary to reflect on how African food systems need to change if the interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to the food systems – including SDG1 No Poverty and SDG2 Zero Hunger –  are to be achieved. 

What would a transformed African food system look like?

Food systems encompass the activities and actors involved in all aspects of production, distribution, consumption and disposal of food. A transformed African food system would have four key outcomes: 

  1. It would provide access to adequate amounts of nutritious, safe food leading to improved food security and reduced malnutrition (SDG2). This will make important contributions to public health (SDG3) by reducing the burden of diseases associated with malnutrition. 

  2. It would be economically efficient, contributing to poverty reduction (SDG1), wealth creation and reduced inequality (SDG10, SDG5). These economic benefits would be shared between role players across the value chain in the food industry. Gender inclusive food systems will promote pathways out of poverty for the 50% of sub-Saharan smallholder farmers who are women. Elevating these farmers out of poverty could reduce food insecurity significantly

  3. It would be environmentally sustainable with climate-smart agriculture widely adopted (SDG13). This is needed to prevent the predicted 20-30% reductions in crop yield by 2080. Food systems activities in a transformed system will protect biodiversity and the ecosystems services as necessary elements of a functioning system (SDG14 and SDG15). 

  4. It would be characterised by sustainable consumption and production (SDG12) with radical reductions in food losses across the entire food supply chain. 

To achieve these four interconnected outcomes, we need to deepen our understanding of African food systems and develop evidence-based interventions to bring about transformation.

What role can research play in the transformation of African food systems?

The connected circularity of the food system requires an interdisciplinary research approach that seeks transformative solutions to African challenges. Although similar in some ways to global systems, African food systems have activities, actors and conditions that are unique to the African context. For example, the African food system consists of multiple interacting food systems that include formal and informal supply chains, as well as agricultural and foraged food production. 

Much research has focused on global food systems. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the particularities within the African context. A recently awarded African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) – UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Research Excellence Project, entitled Food Systems Research Network for Africa (FSNet-Africa) seeks to address this gap. FSNet-Africa is a partnership between the University of Pretoria, the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN). 

FSNet-Africa will conduct research, utilising systems-based methodologies, that enhances understanding of African food systems to address SDG challenges. The goal is to identify climate-smart, nutrition-sensitive, poverty-reducing interventions that can be implemented to bring about transformative change. A structured two-year fellowship programme will bring together over 40 African early career researchers to work on this research agenda. These fellows, the majority of who will be women, will work on their research together with mentors from across Africa and the UK. 

Over the long-term, FSNet-Africa seeks to build and sustain partnerships across sectors and along the entire value chain between capable and equitable stakeholders, as envisaged in SDG17. These partnerships are necessary preconditions to achieve the four key food system outcomes and ultimately the SDGs. Food system stakeholders—farmers, producers, practitioners, retailers, consumers and policy makers—will work with researchers to design and implement the research. Fellows and mentors will be identified through a network of academic partners in six focus countries—Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. Supporting knowledge partners from across geographies and fields of study will collaborate with the FSNet-Africa researchers as they seek to produce relevant, evidence-based solutions. 

Conclusion 

FSNet-Africa provides a starting point for a new discourse on the transformation of African food systems – a discourse guided by the overarching goal of a sustainable, resilient and fair food system. COVID-19 offers an opportunity to reflect on how to achieve this. It is an opportunity to use integrated systems approaches, bring together multi-disciplinary expertise across sectors and to engage diverse food system stakeholders in the development of a more comprehensive, African future-focused food system strategy.  

- Author Professor Frans Swanepoel and Dr Melody Mentz-Coetzee, FSNet-Africa, University of Pretoria

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