The below facts and figures may be of use for reporting on issues of agriculture, nutrition, and diets in urban areas, and informal markets in Africa. For more information, or to speak with an expert for analysis on these issues, please contact Drew Sample.

Linking Urban and Rural Areas

• 60% of rice purchased in Nigeria's urban areas is imported because weak value chains in domestic rice production create quality issues that turn off urban consumers
• In Ethiopia, development of small towns has improved the value chain from rural to urban areas, accounting for about 50% of agricultural input purchases and up to 75% of produce sales
• 71% of staple crop farmers near Bangladesh’s capital used cell phones to be in contact with buyers of their produce
• 97% of potato farmers near Delhi reported owning a cell phone and 78% said they used cell phones to be in contact with buyers

Urban Food Environment and Changing Diets

• At least 40% of urban populations in 11 African countries have been found to be lacking in calories
• One in three stunted children lives in urban areas
• Women living in urban areas are about 7-12% more likely to be overweight than rural women
• 66% of households in a study of one Indian urban slum consume high-fat packaged snacks, 2/3 of them daily

Governing Informal Markets in Africa

• Africa’s urban population is the fastest growing in the world and by 2030 the continent will have a majority urban population for the first time
• The urban poor are more vulnerable than their rural counterparts are to fluctuations in food prices and devote a higher share of their household budgets to food purchases than rural populations
• 70% of urban households in 11 African cities regularly purchase their foods from the informal market or street vendors
• Only 23% of households in Maputo, Mozambique, purchase their food through supermarkets
• The informal economy accounts for approximately 72% of nonagricultural employment in Africa
• Media-reported incidents of violence toward informal workers have spiked in the past decade—increasing more than four times between 2005 and 2015

Agriculture and Hunger Data Trends

• Hunger has dropped 29% in the developing world since 2000, but hunger levels in South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara remain at “serious” levels, according to the Global Hunger Index
• The share of people at risk for hunger worldwide is projected to drop from 12% to 5% by 2050
• 11% of people in Africa south of the Sahara are projected to still be at risk of hunger in 2050
• Global demand for meat is projected to grow more than 60% through 2050
• Demand for fruits and vegetables will grow even faster (though starting from lower levels)
• Agricultural output per worker in developing countries doubled between 1991 and 2013, largely due to increases in agricultural efficiency
• More than 60% of PhD-qualified researchers are older than 50 in 14 African countries, leaving those countries particularly vulnerable to future knowledge gaps and potentially threatening future research outputs
• Public spending per capita on agriculture more than doubled in East Asia and the Pacific between 1980-1994 and 1995-2014, while in Africa south of the Sahara per capita spending dropped
• 77% of low and middle income countries for which data are available invest less than the UN-recommended level of 1% of agricultural GDP into agricultural research