Can Africa harness agriculture for decent job creation?

Structural transformation is widely seen as essential for achieving sustained, inclusive growth. According to mainstream economics it involves a steady shift away from agriculture toward more productive industrial and later service sectors, resulting in higher overall productivity, better jobs, increased incomes, and improved living standards.

However, this remains a distant reality for most African economies, where labour and other resources are largely being reallocated from the low-productive subsistence agricultural sector to the low-value-added service sectors. [1]. This entails that most African countries remain trapped in low-productivity and low-income activities, as highlighted by their overwhelming commodity dependence [2], pervasive informality, and limited opportunities for productive job creation and sustained inclusive growth [3].

Can agriculture be the solution?

On average, agriculture employs more than half of Africa’s population, with high employment shares between 60 per cent and 85 per cent in several countries, including Burundi, Central Africa Republique, Chad, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar [4].

The sector is even more crucial for Africa's rural development. At least 52 per cent of the African population resides in rural areas, and as high as 70 per cent to 85 per cent in some countries [5]. Notably, more than 80 per cent of this rural population are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods [6]. However, most of these jobs are highly informal with significant decent work deficits. For instance, unpublished survey results from the ILO-FAO-CIRAD JobAgri project show that family workers (mostly unpaid) and casual workers (informally employed) make up about 85 per cent of total farm employment in the project’s catchment area in Bono-East, Ghana [7]. Overall, informal employment in agriculture in Africa is estimated to account for more than 90 per cent of the sector’s total employment [8].

Agriculture’s paradox

As a result of structural issues such as poor supportive economic infrastructure and weaknesses in policies and institutions, the sector’s overall productivity remains very low in most countries in the region, including those that are agriculture-based (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Agriculture has the lowest labour productivity, Africa 2023

Some contradicting facts

• Africa is home to 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated arable land [9], yet the share of its agricultural land under crop production remains low at around 26 per cent. [10]
• Despite having the capacity to produce its food and supply to the global market, Africa is a net importer of food with an average net food import bill of 15 billion in 2023 (Figure 2).
• 64 per cent of Africa’s land is covered by freshwater bodies, making it one of the continents with vast potential for irrigation, yet only about 6 per cent of its cultivable land is under irrigation [11].

How can this be leveraged for decent employment creation? While there’s no quick fix, looking at Africa’s exports and agrifood systems might just point us in the right direction.

Figure 2: Africa is a net importer of food, 2023

Engine for industrial growth and export diversification

Africa’s exports are still heavily concentrated in raw or semi-processed primary commodities, which limits its effective participation in global value chains. While minerals, fuels, oils, and metals dominate these exports driven by a few resource-rich economies, agriculture makes up the bulk of the exports in most countries in the region. For instance, agriculture accounts for about 65 per cent of export earnings in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and a similar share of trade in the East African Community (EAC). Accordingly, agriculture remains vital to these region’s industrial development, supplying over half of the raw materials used by most industries. This partly highlights that the declining share of agriculture in employment, along with its persistent low productivity and output over the years, has negatively impacted the productivity and growth of the industrial sector. These issues are further worsened by structural problems such as weak infrastructure and low adoption of technology, which hinder the industrial sector’s ability to create more productive jobs and improve the region’s competitiveness through product diversification and quality enhancement.

Consequently, Africa’s efforts toward structural transformation and employment generation must be balanced to sustain inclusive growth, including in agriculture to foster viable synergies within and across sectors.

Africa’s Agrifood Ecosystem

Estimates show that Africa has the largest dependency on Agrifood systems (AFS) for livelihoods accounting for 65.4 per cent of its labour force followed by Asia (41.5 per cent) and the Americas (22.4per cent) [12]. However, employment in the AFS in Africa is highly informal and most work is carried out for subsistence. The JobAgri survey results show that the upper segments of the agrifood value chains have more economic returns and create more productive and decent jobs. However, they account for the least proportion of the total employment in the sector. Thus, successfully leveraging agrifood for productive employment will entail its transformation from subsistence to an effective driver of growth of agri-businesses and industries.

Achieving this will require strategies for boosting farm productivity and addressing decent work deficits whilst simultaneously fostering a viable SME ecosystem ensuring agricultural supply and strengthening value chains.

A policy path forward

Agriculture remains central to Africa’s socioeconomic development, accounting for more than 50 per cent of employment and 17 per cent of GDP. However, for agriculture to effectively drive the desired structural transformation and job-rich growth, it must evolve from a survival strategy into a driver of inclusive growth.

For agriculture to effectively drive the desired structural transformation and job-rich growth, it must evolve from a survival strategy into a driver of inclusive growth.

This means retaining its relevance not just for food security but also as a dynamic sector capable of creating quality jobs and supporting broader economic progress. Achieving this requires well-integrated agricultural and employment policies to improve labour productivity while maintaining a good balance on both the demand and supply sides of the labour market as African economies develop. These efforts should be complemented by robust trade and industrial policies that foster strong linkages across sectors and value chains, to effectively boost regional productivity and competitiveness for productive, inclusive, sustainable and job rich economic growth.

* The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ILO.

Grace Gondwe, PhD is a development economist with over 17 years of experience in trade, social and economic policy analysis. As a technical officer on employment and labour markets at ILO, she primarily supports African governments in developing and implementing comprehensive employment frameworks.