What is lack for African food crisis depicts irrigation system

 

Figure 1: A man held the hand of his child in Banadir Maternity and Children Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Sept. 4, 2022 (Getty 2022)

Now what is attracting the most attention from the world to Africa is the severe food crisis in East Africa, a land which has already suffered from the food shortage from last century. Over 22 million people are under the threat of starvation due to the unprecedented drought (Getty 2022). 

One of the most important reasons for the current crisis is the lack of irrigation systems including local systems like groundwater irrigation and national systems like dams and channels to store and transport water. Most agricultural production in sub-Sahara Africa is based on rainfall which is extremely unstable, especially in the background of climate change. But at the same time, there is another problem to raise: if the irrigation system in Africa reaches the level that could properly produce enough food for all African people, would that solve the food crisis in Africa?

Figure 2: the food security index and import/export of food of African countries (IMF 2022)

As the below graph demonstrates, lots of African countries such as Egypt heavily depend on imports to deal with the food shortage. But as research shows (IMF 2022), the infrastructure, including ports, railways, roads, and bridges, in Africa is fragile and unable to transport enough food to deal with the crisis. At the same time, the lack of infrastructure also acting to stop the African countries which have food surpluses to aid or export food to the countries that lack food. 

This article demonstrates that the distribution system is important as well as the irrigation system which consists of the claim in the first blog that the food insecurity in Africa is caused by problems in all aspects from production to consumption.