“My son, had I known the negative effects of having many children, I would have stopped on two children. I am finding it extremely difficult to ably feed my large family comprising of two women and sixteen children, using my four acres of land, which I and my family entirely depend on for survival. To make matters worse, yields from my farm, have over the years been reducing, due to declining soil fertility and as thus, we occasionally eat one meal in a day,” says Nabudere Patrick, a resident of Namanyonyi Sub County, Mbale district, located in eastern Uganda.

Millions of African small scale farmers across Africa are facing the same scenario. According to the United Nations Population Fund, the global population could increase by as much as two billion in the next 25 years. If this happens, the world food production would have to double to provide food security for the projected population in 2025. How are African countries positioning themselves in this regard?

Across Africa, the rate at which the continent’s population is increasing is alarming and outstripping food production. In fact, most African countries like Rwanda, Niger, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, among others, are experiencing a population growth rate of between 2.8-3.4 percent per annum, which is unacceptably high and making it difficult for these countries to feed their people.

Uganda, which currently, is experiencing a high population growth rate of 3.4 per cent per annum (third highest in the world after that of Niger and Mayotte) is already feeling the negative consequences of a skyrocketing population growth. The country’s ministry of agriculture, animal industry and fisheries report of 2009 indicates that 17.7 million people, out of a total population of 33 million people, are food insecure.

Though African countries are making agricultural stimulation policies and programs aimed at increasing food production, the efforts, are being undermined by a high population growth rate that the continent is experiencing. This is worsened by the traditional inheritance systems, which are highly practiced and respected, across African societies. For instance, if a father of 10 children has 5 acres of land and it so happens that he dies, each of his children, will inherit half an acre. If the children should each build a homestead and practice farming on their piece of land and subdivide this land to their offspring, the offspring will find themselves with nowhere to put a home and practice farming and therefore will be forced to move to towns and cities to make ends meet. Can a family of say five people, which in the African setting, is too small really be food secure through utilizing half or a quarter of an acre of land? Africa’s skyrocketing population is responsible for land fragmentation. Family members keep on buying small pieces of land in different areas to utilize for food production purposes.

Due to this scenario, many small scale farmers in Africa are finding themselves unable to effectively curb disease and pest outbreaks, as they find themselves applying different farming methods. This creates confusion, as different disease preventive measures, are applied, which in the end, is leading to decreased farm yields and therefore food insecurity in millions of homes.

We need to be aware that the agricultural sector in Africa is dominated by small scale farmers who constitute 70 percent of people engaged in the sector. As farm sizes keep on decreasing due to the high population growth rate, so does food production and subsequent earnings from the farm. This partly explains why 65 per cent of small scale farmer households are still trapped in poverty, surviving on less than $2 a day.

In my extensive travels and work engagements with grassroots farmers in rural Africa, I have observed that women are the dominant workers in the agricultural sector. Besides bearing on average 7 children who they have to feed, they are also burdened with domestic chores like fetching firewood, cooking, and fetching water, which drastically reduce their time in the agricultural sector, consequently spurring food insecurity.

In sum, African countries should design and implement right population control programs, accompanied with small scale farming agricultural stimulating strategies, geared towards making small scale farming productive and profitable, if the continent has to attain food security and sustainable economic transformation powered by agricultural sector.

By Moses Hategeka,
The author [email protected] is a Ugandan based independent governance researcher, public affairs analyst and writer.