Why cant africa grow tons of food with all its land.?

Question

I know this is comes of as an ingnorant questuion, it is. I am more unaware of the argircultural component. I know the sahara desert is huge, and a lot of land is occupied by mature vegetation, but there is a lot of savanha. Are large fields of rice and wheat impossible to produce on so much unoccupied land.

Answer 1

I spoke to a missionary about a different farming technique in his area and he explained that termites will pull all the plant materiel out of the soil which greatly reduces fertility.

Therefore it's a combination of climate, crops, culture and insects that reduce the productivity of the land.  

There is also a tremendous infrastructure needed to produce and transport grain and wheat and rice take fertilizer and insecticide which is not available there, again because of the lack of infrastructure.

Answer 2

when they learn how to make it rain...look out!

Answer 3

it is way to hot and it would get in fected with aids

Answer 4

the land is way to dry

Answer 5

have you ever seen a rice feild (IT LOOKS LIKE A SWAMP) HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU SEEN A SWAMP IN THE DESERT

Answer 6

Part of the problem is easy to germinate seeds and the proper fertilization.  Irrigation is also a problem.  The World Hunger Bank is looking at the first problem.... seeds.

Answer 7

The land in Africa can grow plenty of food, but the corruption and mismanagement so rampant among current African governments make it impossible for enough food to be grown. Zimbabwe, for example, was a net exporter of food under previous government when the country was called Rhodesia. When the current ruling party of Zimbabwe took over, they instituted racist policies that took land away from farmers who were also racial minorities and gave that land to members of the majority race. This caused food production to fall drastically, and now Zimbabwe must import food and is a much poorer nation than Rhodesia was under the previous government. Similar race based policies were used in other parts of Africa in the last 100 or so years, usually with similar results.

It is not the fault of the land. It is the fault of the people who control the land. Under previous management there were running tractors in most of Africa...

Answer 8

Africa as a whole is growing enough food to feed themselves. There is a great variation in the land on the continent of Africa. Many countries in Africa grow enough food, but most are small single family farms. Large sale farming requires a lot more inputs than most farmers can provide. There are several hardships facing farmers in many countries in Africa, including Government, war, drought, lack i

of capital and unavailability to obtain improved varieties, fertilizers etc. Most farmers can get by growing their own food and keeping a few sheep and goats. On the whole, farmers are a poor but happy people if left alone to farm.

Answer 9

They can grow tons of food with alot of its land.  Many of the countries in Africa are very fertile.  but many countries are going through alot of political problems such as Zimbabwa, the Congo and Kenya all for different reasons.  Another problem is the WTO issue.  America and Europe all subsidize their giant agribusiness farmers to the hilt and in turn these agribusinesses sell their crops to poor countries at an incredibly cheap rate.  So cheap in fact, that many of the native farmers of those countries can't compete because it is underselling their ability to grow the crop for themselves.  The recent food riots in Haiti are an example of that.  American rice growers are subsidized heavily and sell Haiti cheap rice.  Haiti used to grow their own rice and sustain their entire population on their own food in their country.  But agribusiness is underselling them so small family farmers can't afford to grow the food themselves so they go out of business.  This happened with bananas in Jamaica and dole fruit company and it happened in mexico with all kinds of foods.  And, that is why you see a flood of mexicans coming over the borders trying to find work in the U.S  All these people have been displaced because of U.S subsidies to the giant agribusinesses in this country.  BTW, it happened to the small family farmer first.  But this practice cannot be sustained in the world let alone the U.S.  We are going to see alot more distribution problems, rising food costs and then far more riots around the world because food is now sold only to the highest bidder countries.  You're even seeing a huge shortage of food in our nations food banks for the poor (and now middle class who are visiting them because they can't afford food after paying for gas).

Answer 10

The land is far too dry to be productive.  The amount of irrigation needed would be completely prohibitive to growing any meaningful amount of food.

Answer 11

Because they are to busy sending out junk mail saying that I am going to be able to get 8 billion dollars from the bank of Nigeria.  And not thinking of how to grow more food.

Answer 12

You should go to Africa mate its not like the adverts you see all over the place. Its like an advert focusing on homeless people in the USA throughout in another country.

I call it the Pretend Africa is completely starving buisness. A large some of the aid is put in the aiders pocket the rest is sent to the curropt African governments who dont bull with it so the business can carry on. My parents are from east Africa Ive been there none of my family are starving most of them are fat they own very big fertile land bigger than a town sometimes.

Answer 13

It's hard to grow and transport food when your government won't build roads or allow you to own land, which is the case in most of Africa.

Answer 14

Much of the land in Africa needs modification to be ideal for growing crops.  Desert and savannahs need irrigation, jungles would need clearing...  Also, people in third world countries don't have the advantages of mechanization.  A few acres might be too much to handle if you have to plow, plant, weed, etc. by hand.  They don't have the use of tractors like we do, making it possible to manage hundreds of acres.  They don't have fertilizer to make the soil more capable of growing things, and they don't have herbicides to kill the weeds that are competing with crop plants for nutrients.  They don't have fungicides to kill plant diseases or insecticides to kill pest insects.  All this translates to significantly lower yields.  They also don't have the education that we have about growing things, and in many places they have to contend with war.

Answer 15

It's a very good question.

I think that the answer is "different" (translation: LACK of, by the standards of other continents) social organization, at every level, from village to nation.

Answer 16

the land is very dry therefore making the land useless for farming....

Answer 17

don't you know that you cant grow anything in a desert more over wheat is suitable where thre are cool weather and rice is suitable where there is high rainfll so deserts are not ideal of course irrigtion is an optionl but that will wont be enough beides the temperatures are too high