Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

16 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential

Figure 9. Agricultural productivity (agricultural value added per worker)

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators; authors’ calculations.

Having reviewed a number of key economic indicators affecting the food supply potential of West Africa,

we now turn to the staple food systems, describe their production patterns and review their current

productivity status and potential, with particular reference to the key staple food crops in the region.

Among the productivity variables we will review are the yield patterns, as well as soil fertility – a key

impediment to future food productivity growth in the region.

3.2. Staple food production: composition and trends

Compared with other regions, West Africa (and similarly elsewhere in Africa) started out with a

relatively high ratio of land per capita (over 2/3 ha per capita in 1960). But since then, the strong

population growth has significantly reduced this ratio to less than 1/3 ha per capita. Compared with

Latin America, West Africa had over 50 percent more land per capita in the beginning of the 1960s;

however, that advantage all but disappeared with both regions reaching the same level – around 0.26

ha per capita – by 2009.

0500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Benin

Burkina Faso

Cameroon

Chad

Côte d'Ivoire

Gambia

Guinea

Mali

Mauritania

Niger

Senegal

Togo

Sub-Saharan Africa

World

East Asia & Pacific

Lan America & Carib.

MENA

South Asia

Agriculture value added per worker 2000$