Human Rights Day 2025: Advancing The Right To Food And The Rights Of Africa’s Farmers

Human Rights Day, December 10, invites the global community to pause and reflect on the universal promise made seventy-seven years ago through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For me, this reflection always leads back to the individuals who sustain Africa’s food systems—our farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, and rural workers. Their labour ensures the survival of millions, yet they continue to face profound human rights challenges that threaten their livelihoods, dignity, and future.

As a Member of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants, Farmers, and Rural Workers, I speak today to honor the contributions of African Farmers and to draw urgent attention to the systemic changes required in Africa’s food system and agricultural sector. The theme for this year, Human Rights: Our Everyday Essential, expresses a truth that is undeniable across the continent. Human rights are not symbolic aspirations; they are practical necessities that shape health, safety, and well-being.

The Right to Food: A Promise Still Unfulfilled

One of the most essential human rights is the right to adequate, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food. This right is explicitly stated in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Yet for millions on our continent, this right remains beyond reach.

The crisis is stark. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025, more than 307 million people, over 20 percent of Africa’s population, faced hunger in 2024. Projections for 2030 indicate that 512 million people could be chronically undernourished, with Africa accounting for nearly 60 percent of global hunger. These figures are even more troubling considering that Africa holds about 65 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet remains a net food importer. This contradiction highlights deeper systemic weaknesses and a failure to uphold one of the most basic human rights.

Rather than strengthen our agricultural sector and create the condition for a sustainable food system, Africa’s spending on food imports continues to soar at an alarming rate. Sub-Saharan Africa spent US$62.8 billion on food imports in 2024, and is projected to spend US$65 billion on food imports by the end of 2025, according to the latest estimates from the FAO’s Food Outlook report.

Why Farmers Themselves Experience Hunger

There is a painful irony at the heart of Africa’s food crisis: small-scale farmers who produce more than 70 percent of the continent’s food, are often the first to go hungry. Their daily realities reveal why.

Many farmers cultivate small plots, rely on traditional tools, and produce limited yields. Because most grow seasonal crops, food supplies run out long before the next harvest. And even when harvests come, farmers cannot simply eat all they produce. They must sell part of their already small harvest to meet essential household needs such as school fees, medical care, clothing, emergencies, and community obligations.

This means that hunger becomes a recurring companion, particularly during the months between planting and harvest. Food insecurity among farmers is not a contradiction; it is a structural outcome of poverty, limited land, and inadequate support systems.

The Deepening Crisis in Conflict-Affected Regions

The challenges become even more severe in parts of Africa destabilized by conflict, terrorism, and political unrest. Farmers have been driven from ancestral lands, entire communities have fled for safety, and forests that once supported food production, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge have turned into unsafe territories.

Displacement erodes multiple rights at once. Families lose their homes, their crops, their seeds, and their sense of security. Those who once fed their communities must rely on humanitarian aid. The breakdown of local food systems in these regions creates hunger shocks that spill over into neighboring communities. When farmers cannot farm, markets shrink, productivity falls, and hunger spreads.

Conflict does not merely disrupt agricultural cycles; it destroys the foundation on which food systems and rural economies depend.

Human Rights Violations Across Agricultural Supply Chains

Even in more peaceful regions, many farmers encounter persistent human rights abuses. These abuses arise from inequitable land systems, weak governance, and exploitative supply chain practices. Farmers and farm workers continue to face unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, and also deal with discrimination, inequality, and lack of access to justice

In communities affected by large-scale land acquisitions, harassment, intimidation, and even militarization, have become common experiences. Mechanization remains extremely low across the continent. More than 60 percent of farm power still comes from human muscle, about 25 percent from animal labour, and less than 20 percent from engine power. These conditions limit productivity and reinforce cycles of poverty and vulnerability.

The Web of Structural Challenges Affecting Farmers

Across Africa, smallholder farmers operate within a complex web of challenges that inhibit productivity, undermine resilience, and trap families in poverty. These challenges include pests and diseases, unstable market prices, poor rural infrastructure, limited access to credit, and the growing threats of climate change.

One of the most devastating barriers is post-harvest loss. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, up to 40 percent of crops are lost after harvest. The World Bank estimates that these losses cost Africa 14 billion dollars annually. This not only deprives farmers of income but severely undermines national food security.

Climate change further deepens the crisis. Erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and sudden floods destabilize farming cycles and destroy crops. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that Sub-Saharan Africa could face up to a 20 percent reduction in crop yields by 2050 if current conditions persist.

These challenges are rooted in deeper structural issues, including colonial agricultural legacies that prioritized export crops over food security, limited land access, and decades of policy neglect.

The Rights of Farmers: A Pathway to Transformation

Despite the enormity of these challenges, the future is not without hope. Africa’s farmers have clearly defined rights, articulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). These include the rights to life and security, access to information, nondiscrimination, safe working conditions, adequate living standards, land, seeds, and environmental protection.

These rights provide a roadmap for building a more resilient, equitable, and food-secure Africa. When farmers’ rights are respected and upheld, agricultural systems flourish, rural communities thrive, and hunger recedes.

Africa’s Commitments and the Implementation Gap

The continent has made important normative progress. Frameworks such as the Maputo Declaration (2003), the AU Declaration on Land Issues (2009), the Malabo Declaration (2014), and, most recently, the Kampala CAADP Declaration adopted in January 2025, signal an intention to transform Africa’s food systems. The Kampala Declaration sets ambitious goals, including commitments to intensify sustainable production, boost investment, advance inclusivity, improve nutrition, strengthen resilience, and enhance governance.

However, the major challenge remains implementation. Many commitments remain on paper rather than being translated into practical reforms that reach farmers in their fields and communities.

A Call to Action for African Governments

As we mark Human Rights Day, I call on African governments to take decisive steps that honour the spirit of this global observance. Policies, strategies, and budgets must reflect the centrality of farmers’ rights and agriculture. Governments must invest in rural infrastructure, agricultural research, and extension services, while ensuring that farmers, especially women and youth, participate meaningfully in decision-making. Civic space must be protected so that rights defenders and farming communities can advocate for change without fear.

Conclusion: A Future Rooted in Dignity and Justice

Human rights form the backbone of a peaceful, equitable, and sustainable society. To secure Africa’s future, we must defend the rights of those who feed us, preserve our landscapes, and sustain our rural economies. On this Human Rights Day, I reaffirm my belief that Africa can and must build a future where farmers are respected, empowered, and free—full partners in shaping the continent’s progress and prosperity.

*Prof. Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile, SJD (Harvard) is a Member of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants, Farmers and Rural Workers