| Abstract: | It is argued in this article that sub-Saharan Africa, given its present institutions and endowments of capital and technology, is already dangerously close to overpopulation. The rapid growth of its population projected for the next decades will greatly increase human misery and depress economic development. Specifically, rapid population growth will have disastrous effects on the region's ability to increase exports and provide people with food. There must be a search for new ways in which these effects could be mitigated. In sub-Saharan Africa fertility either continues to be very high or is increasing, in part due to some decline in traditional practices that reduce fertility, such as prolonged breastfeeding. This situation and the expectation of declining mortality imply that African population growth may increase further. Currently, population in sub-Saharan Africa is about half that of India and a third of China. There are 2 main reasons why reduced fertility in the next few decades is unlikely in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole: Africa has low literacy, high infant and child mortality, and low urbanization; and average African fertility rates may even increase for the next 20 years or so. The question that arises is what are the implications of continuing and rapid population growth for the African food supply. The region's cereal production is largely restricted to 4 grains, i.e., millet, sorghum, maize, and rice. The volume of grain production is less, by weight, than 60% of the production of roots and tubers. There are 2 main differences between the output of these crops in sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world: yields/hectare are lower in Africa than in elsewhere; and yields have generally been decreasing or largely constant in Africa. The low productivity has several causes. Today, population pressure has brought diminishing returns to traditional agriculture in much of the Sahel and the savanna, in parts of East Africa, Southern Africa, and parts of the West African forest belt. There is also the absence of the Green Revolution, i.e., the use of new high yielding seeds and new technologies in agriculture that has led to marked increases in yields in most other parts of the world. A totally different and more productive agriculture might evolve if African governments were to fundamentally change their vision. Existing production technology could allow substantial increases in the yields of many crops if some basic changes were made in the policies affecting agriculture. A way to achieve such change would be to make farming profitable. The effect of population growth in diminishing returns to agriculture also lends urgency to the need for family planning. Generally, population policy in Africa badly needs strengthening. |
