27.


Part 1: Realizing the
Potential of Maize in Sub-Saharan Africa*


* Prepared with the collaboration of IITA.


 Introduction

In the wake of the Green Revolu-
tion of the 1960s and 1970s, when a
sharp surge in wheat and rice
production greatly reduced food
imports in many developing coun-
tries, an end to hunger appeared in
sight. More recently, however,
some of the greatest beneficiaries of
the technological innovations of the
1960s and 1970s-including China,
India, Pakistan, and Mexico-have
experienced slower rates of growth
in cereal production, and there is
evidence that historical growth
rates may be difficult to sustain
(CIMMYT 1989). The realization
has slowly been dawning that the
Malthusian race between popula-
tion growth and food production is
not yet won, at least not in the de-
veloping countries, and that the
world's ability to feed itself is more
precarious than had previously
been thought.

The problem of lagging food produc-
tion is most evident in sub-Saharan
Africa, a region largely unaffected
by the technological innovations
that so profoundly transformed the


1 Throughout this report, "Sub-Saharan
 Africa" and "Africa" are used inter-
 changeably to denote all countries in
 Africa except those in North Africa
 (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and
 Egypt) and the Republic of South Africa.
2 The primary data sources used in prepar-
 ing this report include the AGROSTAT
 data base compiled by the Food and
 Agriculture Organization of the United
 Nations (FAO), as well as the World
 Development Report series published
 annually by the World Bank. Some of the
 data in these sources are questionable,
 particularly the African data, because
 official statistics are weak in a number of
 countries. Empirical results appearing in
 this report must therefore be interpreted
 with some degree of caution.


world's wheat and rice economies.'
Unlike Asia, where rice and wheat
are the major staple foods, in Africa
diets are based primarily on coarse
grains (maize, millet, and sorghum)
or on roots and tubers (cassava,
yams, and sweet potatoes). Many
African staple food crops did not
benefit directly from the technologi-
cal advances associated with the
Green Revolution, either because
improved seed-fertilizer technolo-
gies were lacking for the African
crops, or, if they were available,
because government policies dis-
couraged their adoption by farmers.
As a result, food production in
Africa has not kept pace with rising
population. While population
growth averaged 2.9% from 1961-65
to 1984-88 for the region as a


whole, growth in cereal crop
production averaged only 1.9%
during the same period.2 Thus, per
capital cereal production in Africa
has actually fallen during the
past 25 years, a phenomenon
unparalleled elsewhere (Figure 1).

Most African nations have re-
sponded to widening food deficits by
importing increasing amounts of
cereals, primarily wheat and rice.
Consumption of imported cereals
has been encouraged by economic
policies that have made imports
cheaper than domestically produced
staples, and by demographic
changes (such as urbanization and
women's entry into the formal labor
market) which have increased the
demand for convenience foods. For


(kg/capita)
340 -m


300-


260-


220-


180-


140-


100-


60 i I I I I I I I I I I I I I I i i i" r
 1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1986
Source: Calculated from FAO data.

Figure 1. Cereal production per capital by developing country region.


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