Introduction
The African continent continues to face a food crisis
that was amplified by the recent food and financial
crises. This situation reflects a long-term structural
problem: poor performance of the agricultural sector,
especially the low agricultural productivity for the staple
food crops. Africa has some of the lowest levels
of cereal yields and labor productivities and these have
barely changed in 30 years. The continent has declining
per capita agricultural output levels, especially of staple foods; it has some of the lowest chemical fertilizer
use rates, with serious nutrient mining and declining
soil fertility; and is losing world market shares for all
its traditional export crops (World Bank, 2007). While
yield gains have been made in more recent times they
still fall way below what is needed to feed the rapidly
growing population.