The president of the African Development Bank argued that Africa has the potential to become the solution to the global food crisis, because 65% of all uncultivated arable land is on the continent.

"What Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world, because 65% of all arable land that is not yet cultivated is in Africa," Akinwumi Adesina said late Friday at the closing press conference of the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meetings held this week in Accra, Ghana's capital.

For the banker, "Africa must become the solution to the global food crisis" and the AfDB is betting on African agriculture to ensure that even while dealing with the current food emergency, Africa drives the structural transformation of agriculture.

"The most important thing for us is that agriculture will diversify our economies, transform our rural areas, which unfortunately have become a hopeless place, and create jobs," he said, quoted by Lusa.

The responsible still defended a modern agriculture, with appropriate technology, productivity and framed with the necessary infrastructures, roads, energy, irrigation, logistics.

"The time has come for Africa not only to produce food, but also to process food. To package food. Africa must have quality standards in the food it produces and must export. When we talk about agriculture, we don't talk about agriculture to maintain poverty, but to create wealth for Africa," he said.

Adesina added that throughout the annual meetings, the ADB governors have also talked about the issue of security, stressing that "development only happens when there is security."

"We must support countries to address security, so there must be a link between security, investment, growth and development," he said.

The AfDB announced last week a $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Plan, promoted jointly with the African Union Commission, that will benefit 20 million farmers with seeds and fertilizers as well as other agricultural inputs to produce 38 million tons of food, worth $12 billion.

On Monday, the first day of the ADB meetings, Adesina expressed confidence that Africa will be able to avoid the impending food crisis with this support.

The plan aims to respond to the challenges that the war in Ukraine has caused in Africa, "especially in terms of high energy prices, high fertilizer prices, and disruptions in food imports," Adesina explained.

"With 30 million tons of food imports, especially wheat and corn, that will not arrive from Russia and Ukraine, Africa faces an impending food crisis," the banker recalled, to justify the ADB initiative.