The popularity in Accra of cheap Brazilian chickens is an example of what has gone right and what has gone wrong with the supply of food in Africa. Because of global trade, Ghanaians – especially those who live in cities – eat a wider range of foods than ever before. Shiploads of Thai rice stream into Ghana’s Tema port, selling for prices below those charged for rice grown only a few hundred miles away in northern Ghana. Canned tomatoes from Italy pour into the country, even though locally grown tomatoes are plentiful. The least expensive chocolate bar comes all the way from Indonesia, even though cocoa – the product’s main ingredient – is Ghana’s largest cash crop. Food imports, while helping consumers, hurt food producers. Domestic producers are less efficient than foreign producers. Why Ghana’s food producers are not better prepared to compete in the global food trade is part of the larger question of why sub-Saharan Africa cannot feed itself. The problems of transport, know-how, and land tenure combine to depress farm output and income, and encourage the migration of people to cities.
This creates a vicious cycle: as farmers leave the land, food production declines further. These three problems afflict farmers across sub-Saharan Africa. While African governments lack the resources to dramatically lift farm output and improve the lives of farmers, there are things they can do. They can shift road-building priorities so that neglected farming regions get a share of new and improved roads. They can reform land-ownership rules so that people who work the land can gain legal title to it over time. And they can support effective farm assistance organizations and producer associations or cooperatives.
