AFRICA AGRICULTURE STATUS REPORT 2016

c. Concentration of farm structure and marketed surplus
from agriculture
Farmland ownership patterns in SSA are also changing
rapidly. Since 2007, the region has experienced rising
demand for agricultural land by both international and
national companies (Jayne, Chapoto, 2014; Deininger
& Byerlee, 2011), and by urban investor farmers (Jayne
et al., 2016; Sitko & Chamberlin., 2015). While farms
under 5 hectares still account for 90 percent of all farms
in the region, an increasing portion of agricultural land is
controlled by medium- and large-scale farms owned by
African investor farmers. Although most survey datasets
are unable to provide accurate estimates, recent studies
indicate that medium-scale farms between 5 and 100
hectares control between 30 and 50 percent of total
farmland in Ghana, Kenya, Zambia and Malawi (Jayne et
al., 2016; Lowder, 2016). Farmland ownership patterns
are also shifting between rural and urban areas. Evidence
now indicates that urban people control between 15 and
35 percent of national agricultural land and an even greater
portion of farm holdings over 20 hectares. Moreover, the
share of urban households’ control of national agricultural
land is rising rapidly in some countries (Jayne et al., 2016).
Driving these changes, in part, are population pressures
and increased world food prices, which in turn increase
demand for land (Landesa, 2012; Otsuka & Place,
2014). Increased interest in African farmland may also be
explained by the perception that Africa has large areas of
unclaimed “available” arable land for investment. However,
recent approximations estimate a much smaller amount of
available land (Chamberlin, Jayne, & Heady, 2014; Sitko
& Chamberlin, 2015). The rise of the investor farmers
could influence how agricultural transformation unfolds
in the region. These investors could be the source of
dynamism in agriculture, bringing in needed capital and
new technologies to farming. They could also drive up land
prices, limit smallholder farmers’ access to land, and in
some cases make area expansion more difficult in densely
populated smallholder farming areas. In addition, the
investor farmers are increasingly dominating farm lobbies
and using their political clout to steer agricultural policies
and public budgets in their favor through input subsidy and
commodity price support programs and import tariffs that
reward those with the greatest surpluses to sell. Ironically,
most small-scale farms are net staple-food buyers and are
adversely affected by the lobbying of national unions of
farmers aimed at raising grain prices (Jayne & Muyanga,
2012). However, these trends reflect the incentives
embodied in land and agricultural policies over the past
several decades. Future farm structure and income growth
from agriculture are highly malleable to alternative land
and agricultural policies.
d. Widespread soil degradation
Rising rural populations and associated land pressures in
densely populated farming areas of Africa are causing a
gradual shrinking of farm sizes over time (Headey & Jayne,
2014). Smallholder farmers are responding by continuously
cropping their fields every year, without crop rotation or
any sustainable practice to maintain or improve soil quality.
Growing evidence has been reported of widespread
soil degradation across the continent arising from such
unsustainable cultivation practices (e.g.,Drechsel, Gyiele,
Kunze, & Cofie, 2001; Stoorvogel & Smaling, 1990;
Tittonell & Giller, 2012). Common forms of soil degradation
include declining nutrient balances (“soil mining”), erosion
and loss of topsoil, acidification, and loss of organic matter.
An important contrasting study by Tiffen, Mortimore and
Gichuki (1994) argues that population pressures between
1950 and 1980 in the Machakos District of Kenya induced
households to make land-augmenting investments that
contributed to sustainable intensification. However, in a
more recent revisit to these same areas in 2014, Kyalo and
Muyanga (2014) note that population densities during the
period studied by Tiffen et al. (1994) were generally below
400 persons per km 2 , that densities of some divisions have
risen well over 800 km 2 , and that there is now widespread
evidence of soil degradation and unsustainable forms of
intensification.
An estimated 65 percent of arable land in SSA is already
degraded, costing farmers about US $68 million of lost
income annually. This loss is estimated to affect over 180
million people, mostly smallholder farmers (Montpellier
Panel, 2014). Loss of micronutrients and soil organic
matter pose special problems, both because they cannot
be ameliorated by the application of conventional inorganic
fertilizers and because they tend to depress the efficiency
of inorganic fertilizer in contributing to crop output (Shaxson
& Barber, 2003; Marenya & Barrett, 2009; Vanlauwe et
al., 2011). Consequently, smallholder farmers cultivating
these depleted soils that are unresponsive to inorganic
fertilizer are unable to benefit from yield gains offered
by plant genetic improvements (Giller, Rowe, de Ridder,
& van Keulen, 2006; Tittonell et al., 2007). For instance,
a recent analysis revealed that area expansion was the
largest contributing factor to growth in maize output in
most countries in Eastern and Southern Africa despite
government input subsidy programs promoting greater
use of inorganic fertilizer and improved seeds (Table
3.6). Fortunately, a more holistic approach to sustainable
agricultural intensification can succeed in reversing these
trends, creating the potential for productivity growth if public
policy could incentivize farmers to adopt these practices
(Powlson et al., 2011; Snapp, Blackie, Gilber, Bezner-Kerr,
& Kanyam-Phiri, 2010).
60 AFRICA AGRICULTURE STATUS REPORT 2016