Farmland in Mali (photo by World Bank).

‘. . . [A]ccording to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, . . . [Africa] will . . . need to dramatically increase its agricultural efficiency. Right now, Africa imports 20% of its cereal needs, despite having a quarter of the world’s arable land. . . .

With a population expected to expand by another 1.3 billion people by 2050, Sub-saharan African countries will have to import half of all needed cereals in the next 30 years, if drastic changes to agricultural methods aren’t taken, the study concluded.

‘In addition to closing the gap between actual and potential crop yields, farms will need to increase crop intensity, or the amount of crops grown on the same field within a year, and expand irrigation.

‘“If intensification is not successful and massive cropland land expansion is to…