for - stats - Africa - food insecurity - adjancency - food colonialism - food insecurity - food dependency

stats - food insecurity - 20 plant species make up 90% of food consumed in Africa - 3 crops introduced by the Green Revolution make up 60% of all calories consumed - wheat - maize - rice

• African countries have become reliant on a few food items.

• Just 20 plant species now provide 90% of our food, with three

  • wheat,
  • maize and
  • rice

accounting for 60% of all calories consumed on the continent and globally.

• This deprives the continent of diverse food sources,

at the very time when research has found

massive food and nutrition insecurity in Africa.

• By 2020, about 20% of the continent’s population (281.6 million) faced hunger.
• This figure is likely to have increased,
  • given the impacts of successive droughts, floods and COVID-19.

Yet historically, Africa had

- 30,000 edible plant species, and 
- 7,000 were traditionally cultivated or foraged for food.

The continent is a treasure trove of agrobiodiversity (a diversity of types of crops and animals) and

• its countries could easily feed themselves.