Vision

World population growth and food challenges

The population of the world has been growing steadily over the past decades and further growth is expected, from an estimated 6 billion people today to 9 billion in 2050. Africa is expected to have a more-than-average population growth, which is expected to double from about 1 billion today to a forecasted 2 billion people by 2050. Obviously the need to feed all these people will be a challenge for agriculture, worldwide, but particularly in Africa.
An effective strategy to combat global hunger and starvation has been and will continue to be the cultivation of high yielding, more productive crops like cereals, which will therefore play a key role in meeting the food needs of the people at the time.

The economies of West Africa are highly dependent on agriculture, a large part of whose production serves its own immediate needs and nearby local markets. Notwithstanding the many efforts by local governments and the United Nations and its sister organisations, industrial production, which is now widespread in the other continents has not been introduced on a large scale in Africa yet. One key barrier remains the capital outlay needed to finance the key factors of modern agriculture: high yielding breeding material and associated inputs as well as mechanization. Another barrier remains the complex land tenure system.

Although some efforts have been made to improve land acquisition in many West African coun-tries, there are deeply established small farmer structures that cannot be changed easily, a situation which forms a barrier to increased yields and higher quality food production. Conse-quently, an over-dependence on nature exists and makes production volatile and therefore many countries are importing both staple foods and processed high quality food products to meet the local demand. This is a burden on the national budgets, while the weaknesses in the existing production methods may soon exhaust the land resource. There is a correlation between farming methods and soil productivity, which if properly and carefully managed will allow to achieve the high yield potential offered in the favourable climate. One major concern of SYMBOIL® has been the introduction and application of the knowledge and experience in sustainable agriculture as practised in Europe into the Ghanaian situation. Combined with adequate capital and better processing facilities, this shall allow for high quality staple food production to meet the demand on the local markets and reduce imports.