Roughly 65 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population relies on subsistence farming (PDF). The typical farmer in the region, however, is a woman with no fertilizer, no high-yield seeds, no irrigation, and no medication for her animals. Sub-Saharan Africa adds less than 10 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare of land; in comparison, Asia employs 144 kilograms, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Cereal yields for sub-Saharan African farmers have declined or stagnated since the 1970s, and now stand at roughly one-third of those in South Asia, according to the World Bank. In the late 1960s, most sub-Saharan countries were net food exporters; as of 2002, sub-Saharan Africa imported 19 million tons of food a year.
