China’s Africa ties: why food is the new focus

In the first two months of this year, Shanghai ports handled more than 40,000 tonnes of African agricultural products worth more than US$100 million, according to Shanghai Customs.

By March 3, a total of 1,845 tonnes of African sesame had been imported through Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao Port – 4.3 times more than in the same period last year, official data showed.

Africa produces about 65 per cent of the world’s sesame, and Chinese officials say African countries including Mali, Togo, Mozambique, Niger, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda account for 90 per cent of China’s imports of the product.

“The Chinese love sesame and many other imports from Africa,” ambassador to Somalia Fei Shengchao said.

“With greater peace and stability, I am sure Somali farmers will also have chances to export their cash crops to China and make lives better for themselves and the nation as a whole.”

A growing number of African products are in high demand in China as part of Beijing’s broader strategy to implement President Xi Jinping’s promise to increase non-resource imports from Africa.

During the 2021 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Dakar, Senegal, Xi promised to open up “green lanes” for African agricultural products, speed up inspection and quarantine, and waive more tariffs so that imports could hit US$300 billion by 2025.

The Chinese foreign ministry said last year that since the 2018 FOCAC summit in Beijing, China had given market access to 25 kinds of food and agricultural products from 14 African countries, including Kenya, South Africa, Benin and Egypt.

The ministry said China was the second-largest destination for African agricultural exports, behind the European Union, and Chinese imports from Africa rose 18.2 per cent year on year in 2021.

Following accusations that it promoted an unhealthy trade imbalance by mostly importing raw materials such as oil, cobalt and copper from Africa, China has said it is keen to import avocados, soybean, sesame seeds, chilli peppers, cashews and spices.

Kenya and Tanzania are now exporting avocados to China and South Africa is selling more fruit to it.

Wu Peng, director general of the foreign ministry’s African affairs department, said recently that Kenya would ship 20,000 tonnes of avocados to China this year, and the first batch had already arrived.

Kenya started exporting fresh avocados to China last year, building on a decision in 2019 that allowed the import of frozen ones. Many Kenyan farmers could not afford freezing equipment.

South Africa is now the second-largest exporter of apples to China after New Zealand.

South Africa exported 17,200 tonnes of fresh apples to China last year, 40 per cent more than in 2021, according to EastFruit, an information and analytics platform for the horticulture business. Apart from apples, South Africa is also a key source of citrus fruits.

Besides allowing the import of certain agricultural products from Africa, Beijing has dropped 98 per cent of tariffs on products from more than a dozen countries across the continent, including Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, and Zambia.

Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington, said agriculture had emerged as the new focus of China’s engagement in Africa, partly because “the past focus on hard infrastructure is no longer viable”.

“The Chinese have identified agricultural products from Africa as having significant potential in China,” Sun said.

“The issue is agricultural trade has its limits in terms of volume. And it also raises the question about Africa’s need for industrialisation and where China stands on that from now on.”

She said more demand for African products was not necessarily a bad thing for Africa. China had been sending more agricultural experts to Africa to help improve crop production and Chinese investors had pumped money into farming.

Paul Frimpong, executive director of the Africa-China Centre for Policy and Advisory, said Africa sat on 60 per cent of the world’s arable land – which represented a huge, untapped opportunity.

But he said that agricultural potential remained untapped because the continent lacked adequate investment in mechanised agriculture.

“China sees this opportunity and has therefore stepped up to provide the needed support,” Frimpong said. “This will certainly create food security for China, but also for the continent.

“It is the kind of partnership that Africa needs going forward. Getting more from our agricultural potential and creating food security, jobs, increasing export earnings from China by opening its markets to African exports.”

Lina Benabdallah, a visiting fellow at the Centre for African Studies at Harvard University, said launching agriculture demonstration centres across Africa was seen by Beijing as a way to share Chinese expertise and knowledge about best practices in growing food, maximising yields and responding to climate change challenges.

She said there was no evidence China was doing this to produce more food for itself. Rather, it was simply one of its areas of expertise and it was easy to establish cooperation based on that.

According to Mandira Bagwandeen, senior researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, the 2021 FOCAC summit had seen a noticeable shift in China’s priorities – from hard infrastructure development to trade and the development of other sectors, including agriculture.

She said China was focusing on agriculture because it was a sector with immense development potential that would be profitable for both Chinese and Africans.

“Although it is reducing its lending for mega infrastructure projects, diverting financial resources to the agricultural sector is still another way for it to maintain a strategic economic standing in Africa,” Bagwandeen said.

She said China’s relative lack of arable land and massive population made it difficult for the country to be agriculturally self-sufficient, and Africa could fill the gap.

“But African governments must ensure that the Chinese do not just come, harvest, and take,” Bagwandeen said.

“African officials must structure Chinese investments in the agriculture sector to help advance and industrialise the agricultural industry in the region. An emphasis must be placed on ensuring knowledge and skills transfer in agricultural science and practices.”