The inconvenient truth: Beyond the glitter – Rebalancing mining, agriculture for Africa’s future

Mining extracts value from beneath the ground; agriculture nurtures value on the surface.

Both are essential to Africa’s economic story, yet they are often in silent competition for land, water, and the livelihoods of millions.

From Ghana to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the continent’s development choices frequently favour short-term mineral revenues over long-term food security, often in partnership with foreign-backed syndicates.

In doing so, we risk compromising not only ecosystems but also the well-being of future generations.

Gold may fill a treasury. But you cannot eat gold, nor can it nourish a community once the soil is stripped bare.

The clash beneath our feet

Across Africa, mining is displacing farming physically, economically, and existentially.

• In Ghana’s Western Region, surface gold mining has already reduced available farmland by nearly 45%, leaving behind deforestation and degraded soils.

• In the cobalt belts of the DRC, rivers once vital for irrigation now carry toxic runoff that undermines agriculture and biodiversity.

• In Nigeria and Guinea, competition for land has led to growing tensions and sometimes violent disputes between miners and farmers.

This is not an abstract warning. Ghana’s Water Company has already cautioned that if current pollution trends continue, importing clean water may become inevitable. What once nourished cassava now carries cyanide. Still, the digging continues.

Gold for today, regret for tomorrow

Yes, there are positive examples of mining-led development.

Botswana often stands out for carefully reinvesting diamond revenues into education, healthcare, and tourism, creating a more diversified economy. But elsewhere, the resource curse persists.

In Nigeria, oil wealth weakened agriculture. In the DRC, vast mineral riches have yet to translate into broad-based prosperity.

Short-term extraction without long-term strategy creates a cycle of generational regret.

Foreign companies, often in partnership with local elites, leave with profits.

Communities remain with polluted soils, depleted rivers, and hollowed economies.

The unborn will not remember the gold. But they will live with its absence of grain, trees, and clean water.

An untapped agricultural opportunity

Here is the inconvenient statistic: Africa holds 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet imports over $40 billion in food every year.

• 82 per cent of Africa’s staple food imports come from outside the continent, and in Eastern Africa, 84 per cent  of wheat consumption is imported.

• In Ghana, agriculture employs over 53 per cent of the workforce, while mining despite contributing roughly nine per cent of GDP employs fewer than one per cent of workers.

In most African countries, agriculture employs more than half the population but receives less than five per cent of the national budget, far below the 10 per cent  target set in the 2003 Maputo Declaration.

We underinvest in the one sector that feeds, employs, exports, and sustains entire nations.

Meanwhile, mining, though contributing to GDP, creates relatively few direct jobs. A shovel may make an individual wealthy. A plough keeps a nation alive.

A supply chain waiting in the soil

Africa is not only rich in arable land. It is rich in high-value agricultural commodities with immense potential for agro-processing, job creation, and integration into global nutraceutical and cosmeceutical value chains:

• Coconuts: Africa has over 12 million hectares suitable for coconut cultivation, yet contributes less than five per cent of global coconut exports, mostly in raw form.

• Avocados: Kenya earned $147 million in avocado exports in 2022, but most are shipped raw instead of processed into oils, creams, and packaged foods.

• Cassava: Nigeria produces over 50 million tonnes annually, yet imports cassava derivatives due to inadequate processing capacity.

• Shea nuts: West African farmers supply the raw material for a multi-billion-dollar global skincare industry, yet most profits remain abroad. Finished shea butter products re-enter African markets at five times the export price

• Pawpaw (papaya): Rich in pharmaceutical and skincare enzymes, but post-harvest waste exceeds 30 per cent due to weak cold-chain infrastructure.

This is the real paradox: Africa remains poor while sitting on a green goldmine. With the right policies and investment, Africa could feed itself and the world, while moving beyond raw exports to functional foods, health supplements, organic cosmetics, and sustainable packaging.

A decision for the unborn

This is not merely an economic debate. It is a moral question.

When we sacrifice fertile land for short-term mineral profits, we do not just trade trees for taxes; we rob the unborn child of shade, food, and a future.

Tomorrow’s children will not ask how much gold we sold.

They will ask why the rivers ran dry.

Will we leave behind a continent of opportunity or a wasteland of regret?

Lessons from beyond Africa

We do not have to start from scratch. Other nations have faced similar crossroads and chosen agricultural transformation as the backbone of sustainable growth:

• Thailand modernised its rice and cassava sectors into global export powerhouses.

• Vietnam upgraded its coffee and seafood industries through value-added processing.

• Brazil built a diversified agribusiness ecosystem around soybeans, sugarcane, and ethanol.

• Singapore, despite limited land, invested through Temasek Holdings in food technology and biotech, turning scarcity into strategic advantage.

Africa can do the same, but only if agriculture is treated as a strategic industrial engine, not merely subsistence.

What Africa must do now

A rebalanced, opportunity-driven approach is essential:

1. Plan Mining with Precision

• Zone mining away from high-value agricultural areas.
• Enforce strict environmental and rehabilitation policies.
• Channel mining revenues into long-term economic diversification, not short-term political consumption.
2. Reignite Agriculture as a Growth Engine
• Allocate at least 10 per cent of national budgets to agriculture.
• Invest in irrigation, post-harvest storage, and rural financing.
• Develop agro-processing zones to capture more value locally.

The African Development Bank is already leading the way—mobilising $2.2 billion to build agro-industrial zones across Nigeria to reduce the country’s $4.7 billion annual food import bill.

3. Build Nutraceutical and Cosmeceutical Value Chains

• Incentivise research and local processing of coconut, avocado, cassava, shea, and pawpaw-based products.
• Foster partnerships with global wellness brands.
• Build logistics hubs and cold-chain infrastructure to reduce waste and link farmers to markets.

These are not impossible dreams.

They are simply delayed priorities.

Final reflections: A clarion call for balance and vision
Africa stands at a crossroads; perhaps for the last time before irreversible environmental and social costs become entrenched.

What we decide today will echo in the lungs of our rivers, the roots of our trees, and the bellies of our children.

He who tills the soil leaves a future. He who sells the soil leaves a funeral.

Environmental decline is not a technical glitch; it is a moral failure.

Changing course is not solely the responsibility of governments; it is the duty of every citizen, policymaker, entrepreneur, and traditional leader.

Opportunity still within reach

• A modernised agricultural sector can feed the continent and create sustainable export value.
• A thriving nutraceutical and cosmeceutical industry can position Africa as a global wellness hub.
• Green technologies and digital platforms can empower youth-led innovation across sustainable value chains.
• With climate-conscious leadership, Africa can become a world leader in clean agriculture, organic exports, and eco-friendly processing.

But we must think in decades, not quarters.

In generations, not election cycles.

The leaders Africa needs are not those who harvest votes with golden promises but those who plant trees under whose shade they may never sit.

A legacy worth leaving

Africa’s greatest wealth is not buried beneath its soil.

It is found in its people, its land, and its untapped imagination.

This is Africa’s inconvenient truth.

But it is also Africa’s extraordinary opportunity.

Let us be remembered as the generation that turned from exploitation to cultivation, from raw exports to refined wisdom, from mining profit to cultivating legacy.

Let history record that when Africa faced the choice between gold and grain, we chose life.