The Hidden Roots of the African Food Problem: Looking Within the Rural Household

As fundamental problems in Africa’s food sector intensify under the strains of structural adjustment policies, African governments and international donors have become increasingly concerned about the political and economic implications of declining household food security and rising malnutrition (UNICEF, 1985; World Bank, 1988). As a result, we have witnessed a shift in the analysis of food problems from a focus on aggregate production and macroeconomic price policy (analyses which tend to advocate policies of primary benefit to large farmers and capitalist agro-enterprises) to a focus on the pro-duction and marketing problems of resource-poor smallholders, the overwhelming majority of Africa’s rural population. Pinstrup-Andersen, for example, argues that policies which improve the access of small farmers to land, modern technology, fertilisers, credit and markets can both raise aggregate food supplies and minimise scarcity pressure on food prices (Pinstrup-Andersen, 1989).