Africa needs up to $65bn in loans every year to curb food imports
Farmers in Africa will need as much as $65-billion in loans annually to produce enough food to curb imports and cushion their economies from external shocks.
The continent imports over 100-million metric tons of cereals at an annual cost of $75-billion, the African Development Bank said in a statement. Recent spikes in inflation, including increases in food prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, further demonstrate Africa’s over-reliance on imports of food staples and agricultural inputs, it said.
“A major obstacle to the development of private actors is the lack of credit financing,” the Abidjan-based lender said. Several studies put the figure on the order of between $27-billion to $65-billion a year, the AfDB said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a shortage of at least 30-million ton of food across Africa, especially wheat, maize, and soybeans, it said. The war sent wheat prices soaring by more than 40% in some countries while fertilizer costs in most African nations jumped three to four times from 2020 levels, resulting in a 2-million-ton supply gap.
Africa’s food and agriculture market could increase from $280-billion a year to $1-trillion by 2030, the lender said. Achieving this target will require significant new investments and the removal of barriers to agricultural development, it said.
The continent’s farmers struggle to access private financing largely because of the perceived risks of investing in farming. The AfDB has begun deploying so-called risk reduction tools, such as commercial credit guarantees to ease lending requirements to African farmers and agribusiness.
The goal is to “move from traditional subsistence agriculture to a modern and competitive African agro-industrial sector that can feed the entire African continent,” AfDB said.
Comments
Research Reports
Projects
Latest Multimedia
Latest News
Showroom
Rentech provides renewable energy products and services to the local and selected African markets. Supplying inverters, lithium and lead-acid...
VISIT SHOWROOM
Rittal is a world leading provider of top-quality integrated systems for enclosures, power distribution, climate control, IT infrastructure and...
VISIT SHOWROOM
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation
