Water and Food in Africa

Agriculture can form a central part of the economy for many African nations. An example is Sierra Leone and how 58% of its GDP is dominated by agriculture . Agriculture across Africa also varies in scale, power and size ranging from small scale subsistence farms to large scale commercial plantations. Currently, approximately 33 million small scale farms exist across Africa, contributing to 70% of Africa’s food supply . However, the presence and existence of medium or large scale farms between 5 to 100 hectares are also increasing , but they do not exist in the magnitude that small scale farms exist. Often, these large scale farms are criticised for not contributing to food security within Africa, but instead leaving disastrous environmental and social impacts in their wake. Small scale farms have often been seen as the drivers of growth across Africa, providing food for local communities but also employing and managing a large labour force; 175 million people are directly employed by

Virtual water refers to the water that is ‘hidden’ or embedded in products of consumption such as food or textiles. In terms of food, it is the precipitation (green water) or irrigation water (blue water) used to grow crops, the water used for harvests, the water used to clean and remove dirt from produce, and the water used to transport food to its destination. Global virtual water flows of traded agricultural and industrial products were 2,320 Gm 3 /year between 1996 and 2005. 76% of this virtual water flow was the international trade of crops or crop derived products (Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012) . Why is virtual water important and how does it relate to countries in Africa? Figure 1 – Virtual water (VW) imports and exports of major grains between Africa and its trading partners from 2000 to 2020. Values shown are quantified in Bm 3 (Hirwa et al., 2022) . As mentioned in the previous blogs, water scarcity is already threatening the population of Africa and climate change is causin