The North South Division

After having a group discussion in the lecture this week, I realize I’ve been focusing the attention of my blog on mostly Sub Saharan African countries and their connections to food and water. As I’ve just done a case study on a southeastern country in Africa, Mozambique, I will focus this week's attention on farming, agriculture, and water use in Northern Africa. I will follow this blog post with a case study on a Northern African country in order to balance my thoughts and deliver a more well-rounded image of food and water in Africa.

Map showing the region of Northern Africa (Ethnologue)

The first thing that caught my mind when reading about agriculture in Northern Africa, is that every paper mentioned semi-urban practices. One in particular mentioned feedlots (FAO), “Livestock, mainly sheep and goats, are an important feature of many farming systems...from extensive pastoralism to feedlots in peri-urban agriculture,” this immediately shows a stark difference between Northern African agriculture and the Southern one. Therefore, this also shows the divide between North and South in terms of inferring that there is less poverty in Northern Africa than in Southern Africa. I know this to be true from previous courses, and also through my examination of this course, it is evident that Southern Africa is mostly made up of small-holder farms while in the North there seems to be more of a mixture. As another FAO article pointed to, small scale farms in SSA contribute to 80% of the total farm population and employ 175 million citizens (FAO). The difference between the south and the north is seen in this statistic which says that about 30.2% of the population in the north is involved in agriculture, seen mostly in rural areas (Selvaraju, 2013).

This graph shows the population of agricultural workers in Northern African countries(Selvaraju, 2013)

This percentage stands out to me as in past blogs, readings and lectures I recalled that about 70% of the African population is involved in agriculture, so this could also be a significant clue to show that North Africa is more developed, hence less poverty than Southern Africa. However, just like the south, Northern Africa is a very vulnerable place in terms of agriculture due to its irregular rainfalls combined with scarce water resources as well as hindering developments for better technology (Selvaraju, 2013). In another instance where these two regions differ, Northern Africa relies heavily on irrigation (FAO) which allows much of the region to continue their crop output. In this, there is also a mixture of small and large irrigation systems wherein the large scale system feeds 8.1 million ha of agricultural land with high densities and small farm sizes(FAO). Here we are able to see that water is integral to the livelihoods of the citizens of Northern Africa in that they depend much more on irrigation. Just as my previous blog post examined, there are other ways water is involved with food production in Africa. Northern Africa has access to coastlines. Thus, this means that fisheries are another way North Africans contribute to their economies and receive food. Since the 1950s, Marine Capture Fisheries in Northern Africa have grown “six-fold” (Selvaraju, 2013), which has been an immensely positive addition to the economy. In addition to fish capture, aquaculture production has also seen an increase. To use an example, in Morocco the fishing industry contributes around 2-3% of GDP and employs roughly 500 thousand people (Selvaraju, 2013). This example demonstrates how water and food do not always need to come from the ground, countries who have an available coastline should make use of it as it always generates revenues, better economic stability, and jobs.

The fishing industry in Morocco (MoroccoWorlNews)

To conclude, it is evident that there is a clear divide between the north and the south in Africa. The ways people farm are different from water uses and resources, and the livelihoods of people are different. Yet in both regions, we continue to see undernourishment (FAO) because of poor development. In this case, we could ask questions further than the actual land and water management, and begin to question governments and policies. As one article pointed out when speaking about Subsaharan Africa, “There is no one future for small farms in Africa: much depends on government policy and investment decisions” (Jayne, Mather & Mghenyi, 2010), this can also be applied to the north and the whole of Africa. We can keep investigating and researching why food production and water seem to never be enough however we have to keep in mind that much has to do with the authorities.