ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the characteristics of the natural resource base and the ensuing food insecurity and resource degradation to show that business as usual is no longer tenable. With low population pressure in the 1960s, per capita food production in Africa was higher than in Southern Asia and the world. The chapter demonstrates that there is a strong basis for the adoption and implementation of a resource nexus approach to feed Africa. Africa is relatively well endowed in land and water resources. Over the three-year period 2012–2014, average cultivated area was about 271 million hectares compared with 238 million hectares in South Asia. Although Africa has a wide variety of soil types, the soils over much of the continent are old and highly weathered, often lacking in essential nutrients and organic matter and thus requiring careful management when used for agricultural purposes.
