Aid Money Benefiting Agribusiness Companies, Not Farmers

We must stand up against trade agreements which give corporations new powers to grab land, monopolise seed distribution and benefit from an export-to-the-West model of growth.

It’s a good thing that the aid budget should be enshrined in law, but that aid money seems to have become increasingly about facilitating western multinationals in accessing and restructuring markets in countries in Africa, rather than aiding vulnerable communities. This is becoming especially apparent in the context of food production and agriculture.

Africa is seeing a new wave of colonialism as multinational corporations, aided by rich governments and financial institutions, vie to increase their control of land, seeds, water and other resources. The continent has been described as the ‘last frontier in global food and agricultural markets’ by the World Bank, and private sector and corporate investment is seen as both a good investment opportunity as well as the only way of boosting agricultural production and helping to lift people out of poverty.

The reality is that sustainable small-scale farmers produce over 70 per cent of the food consumed in Africa, on less than 15 per cent of the agricultural land available on the continent. Despite this, donors, development agencies and multilateral financial initiatives, like the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (New Alliance) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, continue to push a one-size-fits-all industrial model of agriculture and make exorbitant claims about their aims.
The New Alliance initiative, launched in 2012, aims to achieve ‘sustained and inclusive agricultural growth and raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years’.

What it doesn’t mention is that some of the projects it finances, such as agricultural growth corridors in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania (which the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) has spent almost £70 million financing), have been described as ‘likely to facilitate the appropriation of land and the displacement of small-scale farmers, while imposing high-input, industrial agriculture using hybrid and GM seed’.

DfID is currentlychannelling £600 million of aid money through the New Alliance to support agricultural development and improve food security in Africa.

This is nothing to do with helping Africa feed itself; it is about further empowering an already very powerful and bloated agribusiness sector. Clearly this needs to be challenged – to bring an end to the latest crusade for Africa’s resources. This means a radical reform of the aid system, which is currently doing more to entrench, than to break, corporate control.

 By Ian Fitzpatrick and taken from here

Africa an El Dorado for South Africa’s Agribusiness Giants

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has Tuesday, released its new report titled, “Africa an El Dorado for South Africa’s Agribusiness Giants,” which shows the extent to which South African agribusinesses dominate the farm to fork agribusiness value chain in Africa-worth billions of dollars.

Tiger Foods, Pioneer Foods Group, Tongaat Hulett, Astral Foods, AFGRI, Illovo Sugar, Anglovaal Industries (now AVI), Rainbow Chicken (RCL Foods), Clover Holdings and Oceana Group are among the top 20 African businesses operating on the continent. Shoprite, South Africa’s biggest supermarket retailer, already holds 34% of the continent’s supermarket sector. Seven of the ten leading agribusinesses (Tiger Foods, Premier Foods, AFGRI, Illovo Sugar, Astral Foods, Clover Group and Tongaat Hulett) are backed by the South Africa government-owned Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which is responsible for managing the South African Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and the Compensation Commissioner’s Fund.

Find the Full Report Here: www.acbio.org.za

These agribusinesses benefit enormously from access to private capital, experience, established distribution chains and both direct and indirect subsidies and incentives offered to them.
There are several implications stemming from South African agribusiness expansion onto the continent, including entrenching a culture of corporate consolidation, blocking the emergence of small operators and producers, depressing local innovation systems and negatively impacting on food security.

from here

Africa’s Food Sovereignty Under Attack By Corporate Interests

Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a coalition of pan-African networks, with members in 50 African countries and representing smallholder farmers, indigenous peoples and civil society, met in Addis Ababa 12-16th August 2013 to formulate an action plan to safeguard Africa’s sovereignty over its food, seeds and natural resources from the assault on Africa’s food systems.

Africa’s diversity and knowledge systems are being threatened by corporate and genetically modified (GM) seeds, agro-chemicals, resource grabs and laws that prevent farmers from freely using, sharing or selling their seed.

These threats come from amongst others, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the G8 "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition" that strongly promote the interests of multinational seed, fertilizer and agro-chemical companies at the expense of the rights and interests of smallholder farmers.

Currently, 80% of seed in Africa is bred by smallholder farmers, who freely save and share seed, resulting in a wide diversity of agricultural crops and a safety net for food security. “We are outraged at the way African governments are being strong-armed into adopting draconian seed laws that ensure the dominance of corporate seeds; giving private breeders monopoly and exclusive marketing rights over seeds,” said Elizabeth Mpofu, from La Via Campesina Africa.

The entry point for corporate agribusiness into Africa is through valuable cash crops such as cotton. Bt cotton is promoted as necessary for African farmers to compete on the global cotton market. "Bt cotton production in Burkina Faso and South Africa has failed to achieve its promise. Small farmers are finding that yields and quality of Bt cotton are extremely low. For this reason Bt cotton planting this year has plunged from 400,000 hectares to 200,000 hectares in Burkina Faso." Fatou Batta, Association Nourrir Sans Détruire, Burkina Faso.

The G8 New Alliance places a heavy emphasis on nutrition that focuses almost exclusively on the bio-fortification of key staple crops. According to Bernard Guri from COMPAS Africa “Bio-fortification is a dangerous distraction from real solutions for nutrition such as increasing crop diversity. We cannot look to dependence on so-called ‘fortified’ crops, whilst ignoring the real socio-economic causes of malnutrition.”

The many pan-African networks belonging to AFSA all note with great concern the increasing acquisition of huge areas of African land by mining conglomerates and biofuel and export agribusiness. Smallholder farmers such as those displaced by these land grabs feed 70% of the world. Their model of agro-ecological family farming is the most efficient and productive in the world. We must support them instead of undermining their knowledge and practice" said Million Belay, Coordinator of AFSA.

from Grain