With rising world population, climate change and ongoing land degradation, there is growing disquiet about the future adequacy and security of food and water supplies. From the title, some may assume that in Africa its smallholder farmers are ‘the problem’. The editors are to be congratulated on producing this relevant, timely, informative book which shows that, in contrast, Africa's family farmers should be acknowledged as the core of ‘the solution’: but they have seldom been served well by the institutions – both national and international – which have presumed to be improving African farming.
To 40 willing authors – African and European, with a wide variety of technical backgrounds and with long and varied experience within the last 50 years in both Francophone and Anglophone countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – the editors posed three questions:
‘If it is true that agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa since 1960 has largely failed,
• What has gone wrong?
• Can we identify the causes of failure, as well as the factors responsible for the fewer successes?
• What is needed to help African agriculture move forward in coming years?’
Part I provides the historical and contemporary context, Part II presents the veterans’ contributions and Part III provides the editors’ synthesis and analysis of the writings.
The book not only exposes uncomfortable truths but also indicates how governments and other agencies – by learning from past mistakes, and by collaborating effectively with farmers to address their real concerns – should better assist African agriculturists in raising and realizing their potentials.
