Food production is intrinsically linked to water – when agricultural water supply or access dwindle, or dip suddenly, food security follows the trend soon after (World Bank, 2020). Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, focusing on expanding global food security, has brought about intensive initiatives, which demonstrate the critical need for irrigation for food production globally. Agriculture across Africa is dominated by smallholder farmers, which make up some 60% of Sub-Saharan population and even more in other regions. Implementing SDG2 will require as much as 65 billion dollars in irrigation alone (Goedde et al., 2019).
African realities will draw on case studies from across the nations of the continent and report the figurative good, the bad and the ugly of water, as it pertains to food production. Africa is well suited for exploration of this topic, spanning a wide range of climatic conditions, from deserts to bi-annual rainy seasons in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and diverse geology, determining natural water storage capacities. Uganda, with ITCZ’s red soils not conducive to water storage fundamentally relies on water input from the plentiful rainfall it receives (Gumoteyo and Nayebare, 2020). Meanwhile there are huge aquifers of water beneath the Sahara Desert (McGrath, 2012) with virtually no rainfall. At the same time, African nations have the lowest, both, ratio of populations with access to safe water and per capita food production. Agricultural productivity is key to structural transformation oriented towards growth. This year economy of Sub-Saharan Africa was estimated to expand by 3.6% and 3.1% in Eastern and Southern regions (World Bank, 2022).
A note on ‘water scarcity’ metrics
Most commonly, water scarcity simply means that the demand for renewable freshwater exceeds supply, which is estimated using mean annual river runoff. Realistically accurate water scarcity predictions, encompassing the politics involved in distribution of access and hydrological variability, are particularly important in African countries as the ramifications of water scarcity prove more severe in such climates (Damkjaer and Taylor, 2017). When used here, I mean to emphasise scarcity of water for agricultural irrigation and hence food production, rather than meaning that people do not have drinking water.
African realities vs Africa’s reality
As Binyavanga Wainaina (2005) reminds us of and pokes fun at in his satire piece, Africa is not one place. There are 54 countries with over 1.4 billion diverse people (UN, 2022), inhabiting some of Earth’s most ill-served climates and hydrogeology. Africans can present the most realistic accounts of their national ‘socio-ecological systems’ (Ostrom, 2015) and local realities; publications such as Sahel Quarterly are an example. In this blog, over the coming weeks, I want to focus on authentic narratives and fact reporting, to render a multidimensional picture of water and food across the continent.
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