Page 43 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 17

Food Health

have largely ignored such require- requiring more inorganic fertilizer
ments. purchases.
Instead, the technophile AGRA · Higher input costs often exceed
initiative has been enamoured with additional earnings from modest
novel technical innovations while yield increases using new seeds and
not sufficiently appreciating indig- agrochemicals, increasing farmer
enous and other ‘old’ knowledge, debt.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram was Assistant Secretary-Gen- science and technology, or even
eral for Economic Development in the UN Department basic infrastructure. Paths not taken
of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), (Honorary)
Research Coordinator for the G24 Intergovernmental The Asian GR relied crucially on AGRA and other African GR
Group on International Monetary Affairs and Develop- improving cultivation conditions, proponents have had 14 years, plus
ment and Assistant Director-General and Coordinator
for Economic and Social Development at the FAO. including better water management. billions of dollars, to show that
There has been little such invest- input-intensive agriculture can raise
ment by AGRA or others, even productivity, net incomes and food
when the crop promoted requires security. They have clearly failed.
fetishizing, even deifying AGRA such improvements.
initiative seemed oblivious of Africans -- farmers, consumers and
Asian lessons as if there is nothing From tragedy to farce governments -- have many good
to learn from actual experiences,
research and analyses. reasons to be wary, especially con-
Unsurprisingly, Africa’s GR has sidering AGRA’s track record after a
reproduced many of India’s prob- decade and a half. India’s experience
Worse, AGRA has ignored many lems: and the ongoing farmer protests
crucial features of India’s GR. Im- there should make them more so.
portantly, the post-colonial Indian
government had quickly developed · As in India, overall staple crop
capacities to promote economic productivity has not grown signifi- Selling Africa’s GR as innovation
requiring unavoidable ‘creative
cantly faster despite costly invest-
development.
ments in GR technologies. These destruction’ is grossly misleading.
poor productivity growth rates have Alternatively, many agroecology ini-
Few African countries have such
‘developmental’ capacities, let alone remained well below population tiatives, which technophiles decry as
comparable capabilities. Their al- growth rates. backward, are bringing cutting-edge
science and technology to farmers,
ready modest government capacities · Moderate success in one priority with impressive results.
were decimated from the 1980s by crop (e.g., wheat in Punjab, India, or
structural adjustment programmes
demanded by international financial maize in Africa) has typically been A 2006 University of Essex sur-
institutions and bilateral ‘donors’. at the expense of sustained produc- vey, of nearly 300 large ecological
tivity growth for other crops. agriculture projects in more than
fifty poor countries, documented an
Ignoring lessons of history
· Crop and dietary diversity has average 79% productivity increase,
been reduced, adversely affecting with declining costs and rising
India’s ten-point Intensive Agricul-
tural Development Programme was cultivation sustainability, nutrition, incomes.
health and wellbeing.
more than just about seed, fertilizer Published when AGRA was
and pesticide inputs. Its GR also · Subsidies and other incentives launched, these results far surpass
provided credit, assured prices,
improved marketing, extension ser- have meant more land devoted to those of GRs thus far. Sadly, they
vices, village-level planning, analysis priority crops, not just intensifi- remind us of the high opportunity
costs of paths not taken due to
cation, with adverse land use and
and evaluation.
nutrition impacts. well-financed technophile dogma.
These and other crucial elements
are missing or not developed appro- · Soil health and fertility have Timothy A. Wise is senior advisor at the Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy and author of Eating
priately in recent AGRA initiatives. suffered from ‘nutrient-mining’ due Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the
to priority crop monocropping,
Sponsors of the ersatz GR in Africa Battle for the Future of Food.

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