The Pardee Papers, No. 15, August 2011

15-PP-cover

The Future of Agriculture in Africa

By Julius Gatune Kariuki

August 2011 (39 pages)
IBSN 978-1-936727-02-5
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In this paper, 2010 Pardee Post-Doctoral  Research Fellow Julius Gatune Kariuki discusses the outlook for the future of agriculture in Africa in light of changing conditions in demographics, climate, global food security, and technology.  He argues that the agriculture of Africa today – characterized by low productivity, low levels of technology use, land use issues, and infrastructure weakness – will most certainly be different in the future, but the difference will depend in large part on policy responses to the changing conditions that are already underway.

Julius Gatune Kariuki, a native of Kenya, is interested in investigating the drivers of Africa’s possible futures and in understanding what leverage Africa has in shaping desired futures. He has a multidisciplinary background covering engineering, computer science, business administration, and policy analysis. He currently is a policy advisor with the African Centre of Economic Transformation (ACET) in Accra, Ghana. He was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center in 2010.

This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales.