blogs.wsj.com -  Countries such as Ethiopia have tremendous agricultural potential, much of which remains underexploited. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The future could be bright for Africa’s agriculture. But to realize its full potential the continent’s governments need to rethink their approach to encouraging investment, Morocco’s Agriculture Minister Aziz Akhannouch says.

“I firmly believe the future of agriculture is in Africa. It has a lot of natural resources including water and very fertile soils,” Akhannouch says, “but it needs a lot of research—and a lot of financing.”

The key, Akhannouch asserts, is for governments across the continent to create an environment that is more conducive to investment. “Then we can start to see an unleashing of the potential,” he adds.

According to the World Bank’s 2013 report on African agriculture, the continent is home to almost half of the world’s uncultivated land that is suited for growing food crops and its harvests habitually yield far less than they could, particularly for key crops such as maize. Much of the food grown in Africa goes to waste—by some estimates, as much as 50% of the produce in some countries never makes it to market.