Africas Emerging Food System Transformation

Since the end of World War II, every continent on earth has rapidly urbanized, with the worldwide urban population share rising from 29% in 1950 to 52% in 2010. This global pattern has been associated with and largely driven by simultaneous growth in agricultural productivity, which "pushed" people off the farm by allowing output prices to fall, and in manufacturing and services, which "pulled" people into the more remunerative activities found in cities and towns. Together, these processes drove dramatic increases in worldwide per capita income, which is always associated with higher urban shares in total population. The paper is built around the concept and empirical elaboration of the five food system transformations which are taking place with gathering speed in developing countries' agrifood systems: 1. Rapidly rising urban populations, together with robust growth in per capita incomes, 2. Profound changes in consumption patterns (the diet transformation), 3. Rapid change in post-farm systems for processing, marketing, and regulating agrifood trade (the downstream and midstream food system transformation), 4. The rise of rural factor markets especially for agricultural services (the rural factor market transformation), and 5. Change in agricultural technology and in the size distribution of farms (the farm technology transformation).