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This book aims to provide key pieces of information needed for
informed debate about large-scale land acquisition by drawing on
the experience from past land expansions, discussing predictions
for potential future demand, and providing empirical evidence of
what is happening on the ground in the countries most affected by
the recent increase in demand for land. It complements demand side
considerations with a detailed assessment of the amount of land,
whether currently cultivated or not, that might potentially be
available for agricultural cultivation at the global and country
levels. It then describes in some detail the policies in place to
manage land acquisition processes and analyzes how these policies
may affect outcomes. This information can help governments in land
abundant countries to assess how best to integrate increased demand
for land into their rural development strategies and provide
opportunities and benefits to all involved, including existing
smallholders. This is particularly important as many of these
countries also have high yield gaps. It also highlights how, in
cases where land acquisition by large investors makes sense from a
social, economic, and environmental perspective, governments can
create an environment that can help to attract outside investment
that contributes to broad-based growth and poverty reduction.
Stronger agricultural growth is needed to reduce poverty in Africa,
yet the region continues to fall behind. During the past three
decades, many traditional African export crops have lost their
competitive advantage in international markets, and many food crops
consumed in Africa have faced increased competition from imports.
In contrast to Africa's experience, during the same period farmers
in two remote and formerly unpromising agricultural regions
elsewhere in the developing world-Brazil's Cerrado and the
Northeast Region of Thailand-conquered important world markets,
defying the predictions of many skeptics. What accounted for their
success? And could the experience of these two regions carry
important lessons for African agriculture? ""Awakening Africa's
Sleeping Giant: Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea
Savannah Zone and Beyond"" summarizes the findings of the study on
Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa, a collaborative
effort led by the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization. The study focused on Africa's Guinea Savannah zone, a
vast and still largely unexploited area that shares many
similarities with the Brazilian Cerrado and the Northeast Region of
Thailand. Based on detailed case studies carried out on three
continents, the book concludes that opportunities abound for
Africa's farmers to compete effectively in regional and global
markets. Considerable challenges will have to be overcome, however,
and recent progress observed in a number of African countries could
easily be reversed by bad policy choices. Making African
agriculture competitive will depend on getting policies right,
strengthening institutions, and increasing and refocusing
investments in the sector.
Over the last two decades global production of soybean and palm oil
seeds have increased enormously. Because these tropically rainfed
crops are used for food, cooking, animal feed, and biofuels, they
have entered the agriculture, food, and energy chains of most
nations despite their actual growth being increasingly concentrated
in Southeast Asia and South America. The planting of these crops is
controversial because they are sown on formerly forested lands,
rely on large farmers and agribusiness rather than smallholders for
their development, and supply export markets. The contrasts with
the famed Green Revolution in rice and wheat of the 1960s through
the 1980s are stark, as those irrigated crops were primarily grown
by smallholders, depended upon public subsidies for cultivation,
and served largely domestic sectors. The overall aim of the book is
to provide a broad synthesis of the major supply and demand drivers
of the rapid expansion of oil crops in the tropics; its economic,
social, and environmental impacts; and the future outlook to 2050.
After introducing the dramatic surge in oil crops, chapters provide
a comparative perspective from different producing regions for two
of the world's most important crops, oil palm and soybeans in the
tropics. The following chapters examine the drivers of demand of
vegetable oils for food, animal feed, and biodiesel and introduce
the reader to price formation in vegetable oil markets and the role
of trade in linking consumers across the world to distant producers
in a handful of exporting countries. The remaining chapters review
evidence on the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the
oil crop revolution in the tropics. While both economic benefits
and social and environmental costs have been huge, the outlook is
for reduced trade-offs and more sustainable outcomes as the oil
crop revolution slows and the global, national, and local
communities converge on ways to better managed land use changes and
land rights.
Stronger agricultural growth is needed to reduce poverty in Africa,
yet the region continues to fall behind. During the past three
decades, many traditional African export crops have lost their
competitive advantage in international markets, and many food crops
consumed in Africa have faced increased competition from imports.
In contrast to Africa's experience, during the same period farmers
in two remote and formerly unpromising agricultural regions
elsewhere in the developing world - Brazil's Cerrado and the
Northeast Region of Thailand - conquered important world markets,
defying the predictions of many skeptics. What accounted for their
success? And could the experience of these two regionscarry
important lessons for African agriculture? Awakening Africa's
Sleeping Giant: Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea
Savannah Zone and Beyond summarizes the findings of the study on
Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa, a collaborative
effort led by the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization. The study focused on Africa's Guinea Savannah zone, a
vast and still largely unexploited area that shares many
similarities with the Brazilian Cerrado and the Northeast Region of
Thailand. Based on detailed case studies carried out on three
continents, the book concludes that opportunities abound for
Africa's farmers to compete effectively in regional and global
markets. Considerable challenges will have to be overcome, however,
and recent progress observed in a number of African countries could
easily be reversed by bad policy choices. Making African
agriculture competitive will depend on getting policies right,
strengthening institutions, and increasing and refocusing
investments in the sector.
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