Outmoded farming methods, rather than bad weather or Aids, are keeping Africa hungry, a think-tank said on Wednesday.
"Poor farming techniques, rather than drought or Aids, were the reason why a hectare of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa produced less than half the amount of cereal... as the rest of the developing world and only 20 percent of the average yield in Europe," researcher Frans Cronje said.
"While Aids and erratic weather patterns have been identified as aggravating food insecurity these factors were not sufficient to explain the high levels of undernourishment," Cronje said in a statement accompanying a report that was part of a survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR).
"International comparisons show that implementing better farming techniques is crucial to reducing hunger," Cronje said.
Aids and drought have been blamed for many of Africa's hunger crises, including widespread crop failure in the southern region of the continent last year that left close to 12 million people in need of food aid.
Aids is seen as a factor because it is killing off peasants in the prime of life, leaving orphans and old people to carry out the physically arduous tasks of subsistence farming.
SAIRR said two basic but essential farming techniques were not practiced widely enough in Africa - irrigation and the application of fertiliser.
The report said sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest amount of irrigated land as a proportion of total crop area in the developing world. It also had the lowest consumption of fertiliser per hectare.
But irrigation is costly on a continent that is the world's poorest. And other analysts have pointed out that African farming has been hindered by a lack of the large river systems needed for irrigation.
"While cereal yield on the subcontinent had increased by 18 percent over the past decade, as much as 40 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's population remained malnourished," the report said.
"Sub-Saharan Africa would need to double its cereal output in order to eliminate hunger and malnourishment on the continent."