Agriculture
Introduction to the Agriculture Module
The agricultural module:
- represents production, consumption and trade of crops and meat; it also carries ocean fish catch and aquaculture in less detail
- maintains land use in crop, grazing, forest, urban, and "other" categories
- represents demand for food, for livestock feed, and for industrial use of agricultural products
- is a partial equilibrium model in which food stocks buffer imbalances between production and consumption and determine price changes
- overrides the agricultural sector in the economic module unless the user chooses otherwise
Millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remain undernourished, and the region as a whole still relies heavily on food imports. The IFs agricultural model allows us to explore what might bring SSA its own "green revolution." The graph shows agricultural production per capita in SSA since 1960, along with two forecasts: our Base Case, which assumes no major changes in policy, technology, or socioeconomic systems, and an alternative Green Revolution scenario, where regional leaders put in place a set of aggressive but reasonable interventions. For information on the interventions used, see our African Futures Policy Brief, "Cultivating the Future: Exploring the Potential and Impact of a Green Revolution in Africa."
Historically, agricultural production in SSA has barely kept pace with population growth, and in the Base Case this pattern is likely to continue. On the other hand, our alternative scenario suggests production per capita could increase significantly with the proposed interventions, leading to greater independence from food imports.
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