Feast of Famine: Projections of Food Supply, Demand, and Human Nutrition For Five African Countries.

Abstract

The food shortages in the Sahel and East Africa did not start in mid-1984 with media exposure of the Ethiopian problems. There were early warnings that the food supply situation was becoming critical in the region. This paper examines recent trends in food production, consumption, and nutrition in five African countries (Liberia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia) with different agricultural policies and political systems in an effort to predict the food needs and the nutritional status of the populations in 1990. The estimation is based on present and projected demographic trends, consumption patterns, and agricultural production growth rates. Estimates of food import needs in 1990 are determined by predicting the supply and demand of agricultural products in a country, dietary and nutritional requirements, and shifts in consumption patterns. In general, the results of this study suggest that if these countries are representative of Africa south of the Sahara, the continent is shifting toward a greater number of food-deficit countries. Ref.