Food availability and agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. A comparative and dynamic approach (1961-2003)

Food availability and agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. A comparative and dynamic approach (1961-2003) This paper proposes a diagnosis based on estimates in kilocalories of almost all plant food produced, traded and consumed in the continental Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar (39 countries), from 1961 to 2003. These estimates are coupled with others (inhabitants, active populations, surfaces) to first show what driving forces lead a country to raise (or not) its production of plant food calories per capita over time. These drivers, not independent from each other, are those of the equation: Production/Inhabitant = (Producers/Inhabitant) x (Hectares/Producer) x (Production/Hectare), with (Production/Hectare) x (Hectares/Producer) = Production/Producer. These tautological relationships make it possible to assess how partial agricultural productivities of land and labour evolve, and more generally to characterize some major pathways of evolution thanks to appropriate statistical and graphical techniques. These pathways appear to be varied and contrasted. The change in output per capita can then be confronted with food availabilities