Assessment of West African agricultural development

This report assesses the region"s farm sector, highlights key food production issues, and make suggestions for improving the effectiveness of agricultural development programs. Against an overview of the agricultural sector, the authors review A.I.D."s strategy of assisting West African governments to identify projects, constraints, and goals and the components of A.I.D."s program. The authors proceed to describe the factors associated with low agricultural output: food import projections; urbanization and income growth; low investment in research, training, and extension; low land and labor productivity; ecological degradation; and prohibitive transportation costs. Next, the authors focus on the key issues bearing on food production in West Africa: the 1.4% annual decline in per capita food output; insufficient research; the costs of pursuing food self-sufficieny; the limited availability of irrigation; government suspicions of private agri-business; absorptive capacity and the need to cover recurrent costs; government subsidies; the role of cash crop production; the present and potential importance of livestock raising and fisheries; the food security of rural households; the impact of population growth; the employment role of rural nonfarm enterprises; the inadequacy of the West African diet; the supply and cost of energy; the necessity of appropriate technology; the declining terms of trade facing oil importing countries; foreign exchange constraints; and the nascency of regional institutions. In conclusion, the authors recommend a redirected regional agricultural development strategy which should: (1) identify the causes of declining food production; (2) reassess national and donor programs; (3) increase national agricultural development budgets; (4) emphasize substitution of food imports, especially cereals; and (5) target applied agricultural research. Appended are data on population, GNP, total and per capita food output, and production of selected food crops.