THE African Development Bank will commit $10 billion over the next five years to boost food production on the continent and help end its reliance on imports.
“The population of Africa will rise to 2 billion by 2050, and they must be fed,” Akinwumi Adesina, the Abidjan, Ivory Coast-based lender’s president, said at an agriculture-investment conference in Diamniadio, Senegal. “We must take decisive actions now to secure their food supplies.”
Governments on the continent are seeking to pitch strategies to increase agricultural output at the meeting to secure funding from development banks, the US, European Union and UK, and private partners.
Africa currently imports more than 100 million metric tons of cereals worth $75 billion a year, according to the AfDB. Its food and agriculture market has the potential to reach to $1 trillion by 2030, Adesina said.
Rising food prices and disruption to food supplies due to the Covid-19
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