Impact of Agriculture on Africa's Development

30 min

Let's begin

In Season A of 2025, 90.3% of Rwanda's farmers protected their land against erosion and 46.2% practised agroforestry, yet only 0.9% used any mechanical equipment (NISR, Seasonal Agricultural Survey 2025). Rwanda's farmers look after their soil, but most still farm by hand. Across Africa, farming feeds families, earns foreign currency and employs more people than any other activity; it can also strip forests, wear out soils and leave countries dependent on a few crops. How, then, does agriculture help or hold back Africa's development?

Definition

Development: improvement in people's lives: income, food, health, education and choices. Sustainable development: development that meets the needs of today without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Food security: when all people at all times have enough safe, nutritious food. Value addition: processing a raw product so that it sells for more, such as roasting coffee or making yoghurt from milk.

Positive impacts

Impact	How it helps development	Example
Food supply	Feeds rural families and towns; reduces hunger and imports	Smallholder food crops across East Africa
Employment	The largest employer in most African countries, on farms and in trading and processing	Tea pickers in Kericho; Kenya's 770 dairy cooperatives
Export earnings	Foreign currency to pay for fuel, machines and medicines	Rubber from Côte d'Ivoire; cotton from Egypt; tea and coffee from Rwanda
Raw materials for industry	Agro-processing creates factory jobs and adds value	Cotton for Egypt's textile mills; milk processors in Kenya
Infrastructure	Roads, dams, canals and power built for farming serve everyone	The Nile barrages; estate roads at Harbel
Government revenue	Taxes on exports and incomes pay for schools and clinics	Export duties on cash crops

Negative impacts

Deforestation: clearing for shifting cultivation and new plantations, as in parts of the Congo Basin and West Africa's forest belt.
Soil exhaustion and erosion where fallows shorten and steep slopes are cultivated without terraces.
Desertification where too many animals overgraze the Sahel.
Pollution and salinisation: fertiliser and pesticide run-off; salts left by irrigation in the Nile valley.
Disease: bilharzia in slow irrigation canals.
Dependence on a few primary exports whose world prices rise and fall, so income and government revenue are unstable.
Social costs: low wages and child labour on some estates, land leased cheaply to foreign companies, and conflict between farmers and herders over land and water.

Definition

Agroforestry: growing trees together with crops or livestock on the same land. Primary product: a raw material from farming, mining, fishing or forestry, sold before processing.

Why African farming remains less productive

Many African farms are caught in a cycle (Figure 5). Low yields leave little to sell; with little income, farmers cannot buy seed, fertiliser or tools; the soil is overused and wears out; and yields stay low. Behind the cycle lie unreliable rainfall and climate change, pests such as fall armyworm and desert locusts, small and scattered plots, hand tools, losses in poor storage after harvest, bad roads to market, low and unstable prices, little credit and insecure land rights.

Figure 5. The cycle of low productivity. Each input in the centre attacks one or more links.

Towards sustainable agriculture

Measure	What it does	Rwandan example
Soil conservation	Terraces, contour hedges and cover plants stop erosion	90.3% of farmers used anti-erosion measures in Season A of 2025 (NISR)
Agroforestry	Trees hold soil, add organic matter and give fuel, fodder and fruit	46.2% of farmers in Season A of 2025 (NISR)
Improved inputs	Better seed and fertiliser raise yields on the same land	The Crop Intensification Programme, since 2007 (MINAGRI)
Irrigation	Reduces dependence on rain; a third season	58.9% of farmers irrigated in dry Season C, 2025 (NISR)
Livestock and manure	Milk, income and manure for the fields	Girinka, since 2006 (MINAGRI)
Cooperatives, storage and processing	Better prices, fewer losses, value added at home	Dairy and coffee cooperatives; milk collection centres

Worked example

Worked example 1: the risk of depending on one crop (illustrative figures). A cooperative sells 500 kg of coffee at 3,000 Frw per kg. Next year the world price falls by 20%.

This year: $500 \times 3\,000 = 1\,500\,000$ Frw.
New price: $3\,000 \times 0.8 = 2\,400$ Frw per kg, so income $= 500 \times 2\,400 = 1\,200\,000$ Frw.
Loss: 300,000 Frw for the same harvest and the same work. Growing several crops, or processing the coffee before selling, spreads this risk.

Worked example

Worked example 2: reading the survey. In Season A of 2025, 90.3% of Rwanda's farmers used anti-erosion measures, but 0.9% used mechanical equipment (NISR). What does each figure suggest?

Soil conservation is almost universal: farmers on steep hills know that losing soil means losing harvests, and the government has promoted terraces and cover plants for years.
Mechanisation is almost absent: plots are small and steep, machines are expensive, and family labour is plentiful.
So raising output further depends on better seed, fertiliser, irrigation and markets more than on tractors.

Warning

Explain the link, don't just list. "Agriculture provides employment" earns little. "Tea estates in Kericho employ thousands of pickers, whose wages are spent in local shops and on school fees" shows the examiner how farming leads to development.

Tip

For an "evaluate" question, use three steps: the positive impacts with examples, the negative impacts with examples, then a judgement that says which outweighs the other, and on what it depends.

World Resources Institute: how agroforestry is helping Rwanda's smallholder farmers. List the benefits of farm trees that the farmers describe.

✦

Practice

Define sustainable development and value addition.
Give four positive impacts of agriculture on Africa's development, with an example of each.
Give four negative impacts of agriculture on the environment.
Use Figure 5 to explain why many African farmers stay poor.
A farmer sells 800 kg of maize at 400 Frw per kg. The price falls by 25%. Calculate the farmer's loss of income.
Suggest three ways in which Rwanda is making its farming more sustainable, with evidence.
"Africa should stop exporting raw crops and process them at home." Discuss.

Show answersHide answers

Sustainable development: development that meets today's needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Value addition: processing a raw product so that it sells for more.
Any four, with examples: food supply (smallholder food crops); employment (tea estates in Kericho); export earnings (rubber from Côte d'Ivoire, cotton from Egypt); raw materials for industry (cotton for textile mills); infrastructure (canals, roads); government revenue (export taxes).
Any four: deforestation; soil erosion and exhaustion; desertification from overgrazing; pollution from fertiliser and pesticides; salinisation and waterlogging from irrigation; loss of wildlife habitat.
Low yields leave little to sell, so incomes are low; with little money, farmers cannot buy improved seed, fertiliser or tools; the soil is overused and wears out, so yields stay low and the cycle repeats.
Income before: $800 \times 400 = 320\,000$ Frw. New price $= 400 \times 0.75 = 300$ Frw, income $= 800 \times 300 = 240\,000$ Frw. Loss = 80,000 Frw.
Any three, e.g. soil conservation (90.3% of farmers in Season A of 2025, NISR); agroforestry (46.2%); irrigation in the dry season (58.9% in Season C); the Crop Intensification Programme since 2007; Girinka since 2006.
For: processing adds value, creates factory jobs, earns more foreign currency and reduces dependence on raw-crop prices. Against: processing needs capital, reliable power, skills and access to foreign markets, which often put tariffs on processed goods; exporting raw crops still earns money now. A good answer concludes that processing should grow step by step, starting with products such as coffee, tea, milk and cotton.

1Positive impacts

2Negative impacts

3Why African farming remains less productive

4Towards sustainable agriculture

Positive impacts

Negative impacts

Why African farming remains less productive

Towards sustainable agriculture