Frameworks and Farm Management Strategies for Sustainable Intensification in Sub-Saharan Africa

Economic power has been shifting globally from west to east for decades now, largely by-passing the continent of Africa. However, Africa has been drawn into globalisation effects – especially the downsides of liberalised arrival of cheap farm produce from abroad displacing home agricultural production. Following the world financial crisis of 2007-08, former speculators in various ‘financial packages’ and previously rising housing markets have now turned their gambling eyes to bet upon the burgeoning world population and its rising demand for food. They are thus seeking to control the means of production of food – looking for spare land to buy or lease cheaply, and trading in agricultural produce speculatively. Africa beckons them as having apparently more ‘spare land’ than elsewhere. This Paper acknowledges the value of genuine investors in African land for human benefit, but warns of the need to pursue agricultural development in Africa on the basis of ‘economy for enough’ among its indigenous farming communities, not unchecked global greed. Rather than industrialised hi-technology, large-scale approaches, it argues the case for sustainable intensification with Africa’s own resources properly managed by Africa’s own host of small farmers using ecologically and geo-politically sound land-to-mouth technologies