UN on Africa: Organic farming means food security

Isn’t it a paradox that Africa, a continent heavily mired in "famine", regularly surpasses global agricultural exports, according to WTO, and other trade statistics?

Or that the 13 African countries superceding agricultural growth in the past five years also rank near to last on the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI)?

More than 60% of Africa’s labour force is composed of farmers; 70% are woman, with an estimated three-fifths operating small-scale farms. Technically, those who produce food en masse should be able to feed themselves, right?

The irony is that African farmers constitute the poorest and hungriest segment on the continent, for it is the farmers who have been forced to bear the onus of external debt, and by implication, the privatisation and structural adjustment policies (SAPs) designed to maximise profit for debt remuneration.