With this year’s AgriBusiness Forum 2011 focusing on ‘Engaging the Private Sector for Africa's Agri-Food Growth’, it is becoming clear that the private and public sector must work together to ensure sustainable growth for Africa’s agricultural sector. The FAO has worked throughout the years to establish long-term trends across Africa to develop the continent’s Agri-Food sector. FAO’s Dr. Doyle Baker, Chief, Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division, answers a few questions highlighting the current status of this vital sector.

EMRC: How important is it to develop Africa’s Agri-Food sector in terms of feeding the world and in terms of economic opportunities?

Doyle Baker: Developing Africa’s Agri-Food sector has long been crucial for creating economic opportunities in the continent. What is exciting now are the rapidly growing opportunities in domestic and regional markets, which are stimulating development of post-production enterprises as well as the primary production sector. Particularly in the next decade, the focus of the Agri-Food sector development needs to be on economic opportunities and meeting food needs in Africa itself. Looking further to the future, as other costs go up and resources become more and more limited in other regions, Africa can – if the right decisions are made now – become a food basket for the world. Large investments and conducive policies are needed but with the right steps leading to a transformation of Africa’s Agri-Food sector, the sky is the limit.

EMRC: Please give us a current overview of FAO’s projects involved in developing this particular sector in Africa and what are your visions and missions driving these projects?

DB: FAO has a diversity of projects covering just about all countries in Africa. FAO’s projects seek to achieve a sound combination of sustainable development in all aspects – environmentally sound, commercially viable and inclusive of poorer and vulnerable populations. For the past two decades, FAO projects have especially focused on appropriate technologies and capacity building for smallholders, with complementary attention to strengthening market linkages. During the 2000s, there has been a re-balancing in strategies while FAO has maintained its commitment to sustainable and inclusive development. In the light of changes in Africa and the goals and visions of African leaders and communities, FAO projects are now providing support all along food chains and starting to give increased attention to post-production enterprises and commercial services. The Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division of FAO in particular sees a future in which inclusive business development in the sector, particularly driven by vibrant small and medium scale agro-processing enterprises, is leading the way to broad based rural development and reduced food import bills.

EMRC: There is a growing consensus that the public and private sector must collaborate to ensure the sector’s long-term sustainability: How does FAO view this collaboration and what are the best measures to ensure a fruitful collaboration?

DB: The issue of public – private collaboration is often misunderstood at FAO and other organizations. Essentially all activities in the Agri-Food sector is private sector when one recognizes that small farmers, traders and processors are private sector actors just as are national companies and international corporations. There is no agricultural sector without the private sector and so it is of course impossible for the public sector to ensure sustainability without close collaboration with the private sector. The key issue, which we now better understand at FAO, is that the nature of the public – private relations and dialogue is dramatically different depending on "which private sector”.  No one in FAO or other developmental agencies ever questioned collaboration with the "small private sector”. What has started to change at FAO – as well as many other organizations – is understanding that agricultural companies of all sizes can and also are part of the solution to enhancing sustainability. FAO is now actively engaging with the private sector at all levels – from small farmers through global bodies – to develop shared vision and mutual commitments leading to sustainability. There remains a lot to do but open dialogue is the basis for future concrete actions.

EMRC: Africa’s agricultural sector is mainly made up of small to medium sized subsistence farmers. What role do they play and how will they be part of the Agri-Food sector’s development?

DB: There is an unfortunate tendency in the development debate to present the future of small and medium farmers as an either / or situation. Small and medium scale farmers are going to be an important part of Africa’s Agri-Food sector for long into the foreseeable future regardless of the policies of FAO, other developmental agencies or even African governments. What will change for many, if not most, farmers is the role they are playing. To grossly over simplify, many farmers are today both producers and retailers, selling surplus products through local markets. Meeting household food needs and generating cash through local market sales will continue to be an important livelihood strategy for many farmers but this already has changed for a growing minority who now focus on producing specific products for well identified buyers. More and more farmers are producing under contract and other contract-like but unwritten agreements. As has happened everywhere else in the world, the African farmer of the future will increasingly become a supplier of raw material to the companies that will produce the food that goes to consumers.   While there will undoubtedly be disadvantages that will make it difficult for smaller and medium scale farmers to compete as suppliers to better integrated and more efficient food chains, there also are better ways for small farmers to organize and become reliable suppliers. The key to the future of small and medium farmers in Africa is not to look to the "good old days” of household self-sufficiency and reliance on local markets – which really were not so good, it is to work proactively to ensure the emerging modern food systems of Africa create equitable opportunities for those small and medium farmers who are ready to take on the challenge of meeting new market requirements.

EMRC: Why in your view should small farmers, SMEs and large companies participate in the AgriBusiness Forum 2011?

DB: The AgriBusiness Forum is an important source of information on many important sectoral development issues. The theme of this year’s forum is particularly timely and could help the managers of SMEs and larger companies to understand ongoing efforts to improve the business climate. The Forum is also an opportunity to exchange ideas with other people who are trying to promote business and private sector development, in some cases laying the basis for longer term networking. Individual small farmers might not feel at home at the Forum but farmer representatives and organizations have an important role to play. Through their participation, the end goal of ensuring that business works for the poor can better be kept in sight by everyone involved in the Forum.