Food Insecurity In Africa

Introduction.

Food security is one of the biggest problems facing the African content in the world today. Due to climate change, rapid population growth and various other factors, many citizens living in Africa cannot maintain a healthy eating diet due to inadequate access or lack of income, this causes a high percentage of individuals to live way below the required amount of food needed to be consumed on a daily basis in order to be healthy and productive. A lack of food security can lead to malnutrition, diarrhoea and foodborne which worsen the problem of food security and becomes a problem on its own. With help from other states the African Union aims to alleviate the food security problem and ensure a better life for all Africans. In

The main cause of food insecurity in Africa is the inability to of citizens to gain access to food due to poverty. Many factors have contributed to this problem which leads to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity (Mwaniki, 2015, p. 1). Factors contributing to food insecurity include:

• Drought and other extreme weather events. In recent times it has been seen that major food crisis has been a result of “drought or extreme weather conditions’’, this impacted negatively on crop harvests which in turn caused a food shortage and an increase in food prices (Harvesthelp, 2012).

• Pests, livestock diseases and other agricultural problems. In addition to extreme weather events, many failed harvests in African states like Malawi and Mozambique where productivity was at a low and even some crops failed completely (Mini, 2003, p. 11). Due to issues such as pests such as “desert locusts”, “cattle diseases” and other agricultural problems such as “erosion, soil infertility” (Harvesthelp, 2012).

• Climate change. Scientists and experts suspect that the above two causes mentioned are a result of “climate change, particularly in the regions of West and East Africa which are states continuously plagued by extreme droughts” (Harvesthelp,

Due to the effects of poverty food insecurity is a global issue as well but the highest number of individuals living in poverty is in Africa, this is odd in the sense that Africa is so huge and could possibly be one of the largest agricultural continent, with the largest food producing capacity. What solutions are there to alleviate this problem not only for the globe but for Africa in particular?

• Improving Africa agriculture. Improvements in African agriculture will be necessary to feed the world’s growing population, it is estimated that approximately 60% of the world’s potential arable land is on the African continent, with all the natural elements required to start farming like sun, water and soil for rain. The problem is that although Africa has such great potential, it one of the most unproductive agricultural continents and relies on the imports for other states for food. Africa needs to support its smallholder farmers together with maintaining fertile land will see an increase in African agricultural production (Cargill,