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.