As the Ukrainian war rages on, Africa has woken to realize that we need to do better in securing our food security and apply new methods to improve on our crop production.

When Russia invaded Ukraine towards the end of February 2022, most African countries immediately started experiencing acute shortages of wheat because of the blockade that the Russian had imposed on the Black Sea ports which are vital for shipping.

The export of wheat came to a grinding halt because of security concerns. Whilst the two bitter belligerents engaged in a brutal war that has cost both nations billions of dollars, Africa was experiencing price hikes on bread and other products.

The main reason is the fact that most African countries import wheat from both Ukraine and Russia rather than undertaking the growing of the same yet we have very good soil.

As Shaka Ssali, former host for VOA Straight Talk Africa used to say in his shows “Africa continues to consume what it does not produce and produce what it does not consume.”

Such a scenario exposed Africa and left many wondering why African nations could so dismally fail to produce her own food to feed her own populations preferring to rely on other nations for food security.

It is therefore not surprising that the current African Union (AU) Chairperson, Senegalese President, Mackey Sall travelled to Russia for a dialogue with the Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift the siege on the Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea and allow the export of wheat to feed millions of starving Africans.

The deal finally came to fruition and Russia allowed the wheat to leave Ukrainian ports, the price of bread had gone so high that in some countries it tripled.

In 2014, the African Union (AU) declared that it was the “Year of Agriculture and Food Security” as a way of encouraging each African nation to be self-reliant in terms of food security.

At Maputo Summit ten years earlier, leaders had called for the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
This programme was meant to encourage African leaders to allocate 10% of their national budgets to agriculture and achieve at least 6% agricultural growth annually. To date, only a handful of African countries have implemented the CAADP.