Browsing: African Green Revolution Forum

Africa spends upwards of US$ 35 billion per year importing food.…

A report released at the African Green Revolution Forum in Accra finds that millions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rarely are dependent on big multinationals for their raw materials but directly rely upon millions more smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The report finds that, overall, only about 20 percent of the volume of food consumed in Africa fits the conventional notion of subsistence agriculture—food consumed directly by the farming households that grow it.

“All this represents a profound turnaround from mere decades ago, ” said Dr. Thomas Reardon of Michigan State University, a lead author of the report. “There has been a ‘Quiet Revolution’ in agrifood private sector value chains linking small farmers to burgeoning urban markets and growing towns in Africa. This has spurred farmers’ participation in food and farm input markets.”

SMEs provide a range of services, from transport and logistics to the sale of inputs such …