Some Aspects of African Agricultural Development

Although statistics pertaining to agriculture in Africa have to be treated with great caution, the following data amply demonstrate the significance of agriculture in the overall economic setting (see Table 1). Available evidence based on national output estimates, derived within recent years, confirms the overwhelming importance of agriculture in the economies of almost all countries that fall in this region. In fact, the agricultural component is estimated to make up more than half the value of the gross domestic product of all West Africa and most of East Africa; it constitutes around one-fifth of the value of the gross domestic product of the former Belgian Congo and the Central African Federation, both of which have large mining sectors in their national income. Agricultural exports dominate foreign trade of all these economies except the two mineral-producing areas. In other countries agricultural exports range from 99 per cent of the value of all exports in the Sudan, 90 per cent from Nigeria and former French West Africa, more than 90 per cent from British East Africa, and 46 per cent from former French Equatorial Africa.2