MOGADISHU, March 28, 2018—The World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released today a new joint report titled, Rebuilding Resilient and Sustainable Agriculture in Somalia, outlining the challenges and opportunities for Somalia’s agriculture sector.
According
to the findings of the report, over the past three decades, Somalia’s
livestock and crop subsectors have been buffeted by an increasingly
fragile and degraded natural environment and more frequent and severe
cycles of drought and floods. These factors, combined with insecurity,
weak government institutions and a deterioration of flood control,
irrigation, and transport infrastructure in the south-central regions,
have led to a severe decrease in crop yields.
The report, which
conducts a comprehensive historical review of Somalia’s major
agricultural subsectors (livestock, crops, forestry, and fishing),
analyzes the subsectors’ key medium- and long-term development potential
and constraints and outlines policy and investment opportunities. It is
part of a wider Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) series investigating
growth potential across sectors to assist Somalia in its implementation
of the National Development Plan (2017-2019), and the preparation of the
subsequent plan.
“This report comes at a critical juncture of Somalia’s development trajectory and investment climate,” says
Said Hussein Iid, Minister of Agriculture for the Federal Government of Somalia. “
It
provides much needed analysis of our productive sectors, the
environmental impacts, and the development challenges related to
governance, infrastructure, and security.”Livestock and crops
remain the main sources of economic activity, employment, and exports
in Somalia. Agriculture’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) is
approximately 75%, and represents 93% of total exports, mostly linked to
robust livestock exports in the recent pre-drought years. Sesame is now
the largest export among crops, followed by dried lemon, in the wake of
the total collapse of banana exports. Despite Somalia’s rich fish
stocks, coastal fishing has remained small-scale and artisanal while
foreign commercial vessels have enjoyed both legal and illegal
harvesting offshore.
The combination of collapsed domestic crop
production and increased domestic food demand, driven by rapid
population growth and urbanization, has led to a massive increase in
food imports, which have reached almost $1.5 billion in 2015, up from an
annual average of $82 million in the late 1980s.
“Rising
imports are indicative of increasing demand and a broader opportunity to
invest in agriculture, and stimulate a private agribusiness sector in
Somalia,” notes Pascal Sanginga, Senior Investment Support Office, FAO Investment Centre. “Making
more and better investments in agriculture from the government, private
sector, civil society and the vibrant enterprising Somali diaspora is
one of the most effective ways to reduce hunger and poverty and expand
economic.”
In the short to medium term, the recovery of
agricultural production depends on better security, stronger public and
community institutions, and the rehabilitation of dilapidated flood
control, irrigation, and transport infrastructure. In the longer term,
the sector’s growth potential can be achieved by developing and
implementing a comprehensive sector development strategy, supported by
effective institutions and interventions that harness the dynamism of
its private sector.
“Stronger institutions, management,
extension services, and infrastructure are critical to supporting
private investment in production and markets,” says Mark Cackler, Practice Manager for the Agriculture Global Practice at the World Bank. “Natural
resource management, increased crop production, postharvest long-term
storage technologies and private sector-led modernization of the sector
is needed to make Somali agriculture outputs competitive.”