Sir

Though overall food production in Africa has more than doubled in the past 30 years, it has declined by 14 per cent on a per capita basis. Many countries have now become dependent on foreign food aid and their increasing food bill constitutes a critical burden for future development. This has serious political implications, especially as a large untapped land-use potential exists in this part of the world1.

Despite massive financial and technical assistance, the current trend is unlikely to be rapidly reversed unless the underlying reasons are better understood. Current explanations focus primarily on the adverse effects of population pressure, mismanagement of the land and poorly adapted farming practices. But in several west African countries, farmers' attitudes and incentives may be even more crucial, so appropriate government policies could really make a difference.

Agriculture in Africa is traditionally associated with low-resource production of food for local consumption. The vast population increase -- on average 3-4 per cent per annum2 -- and the rapid development of urban centres has seriously disrupted this tradition, but has provided opportunities for a more market-oriented production. Yet, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the new centres, very few farmers have taken up this opportunity. In the more remote areas where most of the untapped potential is located, agricultural production has remained low and stagnates at subsistence level. This is not surprising because farmers in these poorly accessible areas have difficulty in transporting their goods and have no incentives to produce beyond their direct needs.

In Sierra Leone, for example, average yields for upland rice -- the country's staple food -- have dropped from 700 kg per hectare in 1978 to 516 kg per hectare in 1992. This is mostly explained by increasing population pressure: the length of the fallow period is shortened and the soil nutrient status depleted, further reducing yields. In rural areas, field observations indicate that instead of population pressure there is a shortage of labour, owing to the massive migration of younger people to the urban and mining centres. But this leads to similar results: land is reclaimed after a fallow period of, say, four to five years instead of the traditional 12 to 15, when forest regrowth would be denser and harder to clear.

At Freetown market in 1995, a bag of imported (and subsidized) rice cost 280 leones (roughly $26) compared with 320 leones for the locally produced rice. Though the latter is of high quality and suits local tastes, it cannot compete with the cheaper imported product.

The main reasons for this price difference are structural and beyond the farmers' control. For example, the poor interior road system increases transport costs, farmers are overdependent on middle men and there is no mechanism for setting a fair price. As a result, inland farmers are not interested in producing more than their families need and young people have no incentive to stay in rural areas.

The solution, nevertheless, is simple. If local farmers can compete properly with imported goods, they can take a share of the growing demand. This requires the government to support indigenous farmers by abandoning its subsidy policy for imported food products; to improve the interior road system, permitting easier transport of local products to the markets; and to support fair-price setting.

These proposals are similar to agricultural policies in western free-market economies. To the individual farmer, they will provide incentives for a higher return and should encourage better use of the land, ultimately improving farming practices. Gradually, producers will think of themselves as part of the internal economic market system rather than as poor subsistence farmers without any social status. At the national level, such policies will reduce the income gap between urban and rural areas and may reduce migration to the cities, as well as leading to a lower external food bill.