Producers are looking to Africa to feed a growing global population as land and water constraints curb the scope for raising output in other regions, the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association said.

“The world depends upon Africa becoming a part of the food production system of the world for us be able to feed 9 or 10 billion people that are going to be out there by 2050,”

Thad Simons, president of organization known as Ifama, said in an interview in Cape Town yesterday. “Sixty percent of available arable land in the world is in Africa. It also has a lot more water resources than in other parts of the world.”

Almost three-quarters of Africa’s 1 billion people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. A World Bank report released last year found the value of the region’s food market should rise to $1 trillion by 2030 from $313 billion as urbanization on the world’s poorest continent drives an increase in demand.
Ifama, based in Washington, has more than 700 members in 50 countries. The affiliates include companies such as DuPont Co. (DD:US), the largest U.S. chemical maker by market value, and Novus International Inc., a St. Charles, Missouri-based supplier of animal-nutrition products, as well as academics, governments, researchers and consumer groups.

A study released by the group at a conference in Cape Town this week identified unclear land ownership laws and lack of roads, railways, bridges and port to be among constraints to increased food production in Africa.