Water and Food in Africa

The previous post provided some context on popular narratives about Africa and touched upon the issue of water scarcity. This post will deepen our understanding of rain-fed versus irrigated agriculture across Africa and emphasise the need to intensify irrigation for food security. Rain-fed agriculture: Rain-fed agriculture constitutes nearly 90% of Africa’s food production supply (Cooper and Coe, 2011) . Not only is this reliance on precipitation necessary to feed a growing population, but also for poverty reduction as 35% of Africa’s GDP comes from the agricultural sector  (Rockström et al. , 2010) . Figure 1 – Seasonal variability in precipitation across Africa due to the ITCZ (red line). Currently, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) controls seasonal variability in precipitation across Sub-Saharan Africa (Ziegler et al. , 2013) . Figure 1 shows that countries in South Africa such as Zambia and Botswana experience a rainy season in January during the southern he...

Water scarcity, famine and hunger crises are dominant topics that circulate the media when talking about the continent of Africa. Figure 1 shows how dry barren land, children starving and women walking miles to access water is a popular narrative used to catch viewers’ or readers’ sympathy and attention. This is where my interests in water and food in Africa stem from. How true is this image of Africa that Western media presents it to be? What are the complexities of the relationship between water and food in Africa and how will they be impacted under a changing climate? This blog aims to understand more about the availability and access to water across countries in Africa and its complex relationship with food production. Figure 1 - A mother and child going to collect water during extreme drought in Ethiopia.  Safe, clean drinking water is a basic human right and necessity. Undoubtedly, its relationship with agriculture and food production is highly significant for human life. In...