Since 1950, developing countries have been able to increase food production three to four times. Yet, growth of food production in many developing countries has slowed in the last decade, and across the world, available land for agricultural use has reduced to the point that marginal lands are being brought into production. To maintain current levels of food availability per capita, it is estimated that food-crop yields per hectare must increase by 40% or more in the next two decades, as a result of an estimated 2,000 million more mouths to feed in twenty years.
In the first half of the 1980s, African countries, particularly those located south of the Sahara Desert, faced a serious problem of food shortage that was caused by population increase, progress of desertification and continuation of drought year. Although the food shortage has been somewhat alleviated in the recent years due to favourable climatic conditions, the increase of food production continues to be the fundamental problem as no improvement has been made on the fragility of food production in these African countries. The Association for International Cooperation of Agriculture & Forestry, Japan (AICAF) had conducted a survey to grasp the actual conditions of food and agriculture in the African countries since 1985 under the consignment from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. This survey has been conducted on twelve countries by the end of 1987.