Picture credit: Bible Society / Andrew Boyd
One of the greatest challenges facing Africa today is neither terrorism nor corruption, but its vast swathes of underused arable land, African leaders have heard. Africa should feed not only the continent, but the entire world.
‘The world needs Africa as a breadbasket,’ British peer Lord Paul Boeteng told the African Biblical Leadership Initiative in Cameroon. ‘Africa does not need to import all its food. Africa can grow all its food.’
The ABLI Forum heard that Africa contains most of the world’s uncultivated land. Sixty per cent of all potential farmland is in Africa.
‘Yet, because of the lack of infrastructure and investment, Africa spends $33bn annually to import food,’ added Dr Delanyo Adadevoh, of the International Leadership Foundation, USA.
‘In the 90s we were net exporters of food. Yet in the 21st century we are importers of food. Today, we spend $3.5bn on rice annually. You can’t really develop when you sell your diamonds and gold to buy rice and sugar.’
The world was looking to Africa to arise to fuel the global economy, added Lord Paul Boeteng.
ABLI is an intiative of Bible Society.
Picture credit: Bible Society / Andrew Boyd
Andrew Boyd
