South Africa: Make Crime Pay (1953)

The above is the title of an article by the Johannesburg correspondent of the Economist, which in its issue of September 6th, presents us with an interesting sidelight on labour relations in South African agriculture. It appears that in the Kroonstad district of the Orange Free State,

  “the new goldfields nearby are drawing labour away from the farms; and in any case the Africans are showing an increasing aversion to farm work. Under the masters and servants act, a farmer can still pursue a runaway worker, and have him first fined, and then forced back to work. But the Africans, it seems, now resent this."

Obviously the good farmers of Kroonstad had got to find a solution to this distressing dilemma. They might raise wages, and thus make farm work more attractive. (They might, but not if they could avoid it.) There must (they reasoned) be some way out of the difficulty. And there was.

During the last year or two, the article continues, the South African Government

     “has pursued a deliberate policy of building ‘outpost’ prisons in rural areas, and allowing farmers to hire convict labour from them.’ There are now 12 such outpost Jails in South Africa, but until recently there were none in the Free State. “The farmers of Kroonstad district therefore applied to the government for a prison in their area. As there was apparently some difficulty in finding the money for it, the farmers hit on an ingenious expedient.”

Any private enterprise enthusiasts who may be reading this should follow the next bit carefully.

  “A leading Kroonstad farmer, Mr. George Verster, organised 22 other farmers into a private company, on a normal shareholding basis. The farmers subscribed £12,000 in £1 shares and elected Mr. Verster their chairman. Mr. Verster then approached the government with the proposition that the company build and equip a prison, if the government would stock it with convicts.”
   “The government was enthusiastic about the proposal, and it was arranged that when the new prison was built the government would supply 350 African convicts whom the Kroonstad farmers company could hire by paying the state 1s. 9d. per head per day” (the convicts, of course, get nothing).

It’s amazing. Crime has now donned the mantle of virtue, ascended to the Elysian fields of commercial respectability, to be sanctified in the name of profit. But hold hard—of course only the “best type” of convicts are employed, this is those who are serving sentences “of from six to fifteen years for slaying or wounding fellow Zulus in tribal fights. Thus they are not ordinary criminals, and by working for Mr. Verster and his friends they will be removed from contamination by hardened, habitual criminals.” Presumably by this is meant those revolting specimens of abysmal depravity the perpetrators of theft.

The only snag that the farmers of Kroonstad had to overcome was the fact that the cost of building and equipping the desired penal residence, was just over double the amount subscribed. What did they do about it? Use convict labour to build it! In this way you can build a £25,000 jail for £12,000. This we may presume is what in bourgeois circles is known as thrift. The name of the new prison is Geneva “perhaps in grateful recognition of the fact that the South African Government does not subscribe to the I.L.O. Convention against the hiring out of Convict labour for private profit.”

We note that one of the many merits of this scheme is that it is “ thoroughly democratic.”

   “By this is meant that under the rules of the company, the farmers will be treated in exactly the same way as far as getting convicts is concerned, whatever the differences in the size of their contributions to the scheme." 

When opening a new—civic building—if we may be permitted the phrase, it is customary to enliven the proceedings with a little ceremony. So the new jail was formally opened by Mr. Swart the Minister of Justice, accompanied by the Director of Prisons who, strange as it may seem, is Mr. George Verster’s uncle, Mr. Victor Verster.

Mr. Swart made a long speech (there were doubtless other long speeches) in which he:

  “Stoutly defended the jail farm system . . . praised Mr. Verster and his fellow farmers for their excellent idea (which he frankly confessed would save the state a lot of money), remarked laughingly that the convicts were lucky fellows who would get plenty of fine fresh air, and finally promised that, as Minister of Justice, he would see to it that 'many more’ farm jails were built in the shortest possible space of time."

The jollifications were concluded by the unveiling of a commemorative tablet and the consumption of numerous cups of coffee and plates of cake. We are not a little puzzled by the fact that the principal participants in the scheme were not invited to this “tea party.” But perhaps they would have been embarrassed. As it happened, the press in the person of the Johannesburg Star, took a rather poor view of this business, regarding it as “morally reprehensible” and as an “investment in Crime,” since it is now in the interests of farmers to build prisons and the state to keep them filled. But it appears that both the farmers and the Minister of Justice are impervious to criticism, and are firmly convinced that they are helping the convicts by what is called “rehabilitating them” and “helping the country” (time-honoured phrase) by providing cheap labour. “What other country, they may well demand, can point to such achievements? When was there ever such a magnificent example of philanthropy and five-per cent?”

Ian Jones

From the January 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Southern Africa's land reform

Twenty-two years after the end of apartheid, South Africa is still grappling with land reform. Progress is slow under the current approach to shift land from white back to black people and many are becoming impatient. Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa. With the end of apartheid in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) party promised to right the wrongs of the past by shifting land from white farmers back to the black population who lost most of South Africa's fertile land under colonial rule. But the government is still far from reaching its initial target of redistributing one third of the land by 1999. 90 percent of the farmland that has been redistributed is not productive anymore, meaning that land reform has not been commercially viable.

"We haven't given it enough time," said Professor Nick Vink, chairman of the Agricultural Economics Department at Stellenbosch University. "It's something that's going to be with the country for the next two or three generations."

Left-winger,Julius Malema, renewed his call for blacks to occupy white-owned land. The Economic Freedom Fighters party has won public support with by campaigning against inequality in South Africa and calling for non-violent occupation to redistribute the land.

"They have been living peacefully. They have been swimming in a pool of privilege, they have been enjoying themselves because they always owned or land,” said Malema about South Africa's white, land-owning minority.

Robert Mugabe wanted to use his land reform program to eliminate the traces of colonialism by giving farms to black Zimbabweans. 15 years later the country can no longer feed itself. Some 4,500 white farmers were dispossessed, sometimes forcibly, and a million black Zimbabweans were settled on their land. A number of new medium-sized farms were created but by and large the land was redistributed to small-scale farmers – and to people who had good connections to the Mugabe regime. As a result of the land reform, some 300,000 black farm workers lost their jobs. Like the dispossessed white farm owners, they received no compensation for their losses. With the implementation of the land reform, the government failed to seize the opportunity to abandon traditional hierarchies and give women more of a say in the running of the expropriated farms. Less than 40 percent of land is currently being used productively, he told DW. One reason for this is that no real work is being done on many of the new large farms now in the hands of members of the political elite. Small farmers lack the necessary know-how and do not have enough capital to purchase the equipment they need, seeds, fertilizer or fuel.

Land reform seems to have become a symbol of how deep racial divisions still run in the country.

  

http://www.dw.com/en/south-africas-land-reform-a-never-ending-story/a-36491026

http://www.dw.com/en/zimbabwes-fast-track-land-reform-shows-little-benefit-15-years-on/a-18461592

Nigerian Agriculture

Nigeria is blessed in terms of natural endowments, i.e. land, water, live-stocks, etc. For instance, the semi-arid of the far north through the Guinea savannah of the north central to the thick mangrove forests of the south of Nigeria is cultivated with abundant varieties of fruits. Water melon, pineapple, pawpaw, citrus, banana, guava, mango and cashew, to name but a few, are the common fruits grown and harvested in abundance across the country. Each region of the country produces at least three of these seasonal fruits in commercial quantity. There are many reasons why northern Nigeria continues to hold the aces as far as food production is concerned compared to other states of the federation. Anyone who doubts the region’s ‘supremacy’ in the area of food production needs to visit any part of the north to erase every iota of doubt in his mind. Truth is the north still dominates the rest of the country in agriculture. Yes, if there is an area where the north literally suffers from an embarrassment of riches of some sort, it’s her rich heritage of agriculture resources including flora and fauna.

But the irony, however, is that much of this potential remains a mirage, because Nigeria still imports about $22billion worth of food annually, especially on foods that can otherwise be grown locally, namely: wheat, rice, dairy, fish and sundry items, including fresh fruits.

Estimates show that the country requires 6.3million tons of rice annually, but is only able to provide just about 2.3million tons, thus filling the gap with import. Ditto for wheat, whose domestic consumption is 4.7million tons but the country produces a paltry 60, 000 tons. Whereas the nation requires 2million tons of milk and dairy per annum, it is only able to produce a paltry 600, 000, leaving a shortfall of 1.4million, which is sourced from overseas market. The demand for tomato is 2.2million tons but the actual amount produced locally is 1.5million tons. But over 700, 000 tons is lost to post-harvest. The country also produces 4.5million oil palms but the local demand is 8.5million tons. Nigeria requires at least 3.6milliuon tons of cocoa, but it is only able to produce 250, 000 tons. The demand is 700, 000 while 200, 000 is produced for cotton and 7million tons with 6.2million tons is produced for sorghum.

The only crop the nation easily produces is maize/corn. While it requires 7.5million tons, it produces 7million tons. The country also has self-sufficiency in the production of yams. The nation requires 39million tons annually but produces 37million tons.

Food Power

As a young university student of agriculture, Edie Mukiibi believed the latest hybrid seeds which promised bumper crops were the answer to improving the lot of maize farmers in his part of Uganda. He persuaded many to buy the seeds, while working part-time promoting them in Kiboga district in central Uganda. But the consequences were "terrible", he said. It was 2007, a year of drought, and the new seeds turned out to be less resilient than traditional varieties. "The farmers lost almost everything - every bit of maize crop they had. When I went back to talk with the farmers I could feel their pain," Mukiibi said. Even worse, the new crops could not be grown with any other crops, so the farmers were left with nothing to fall back on except the bills they had run up for the pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers the maize required, he said. "This is when I started working with farmers ... to diversify their farming," said Mukiibi, now vice president of Slow Food International, a grassroots movement of farmers, chefs, activists and academics campaigning to improve the quality of food and the lives of producers.

Large companies are increasingly taking charge of food production in Africa and pushing for greater quantities of food - but these are not the answer to cutting hunger in Africa, he said. "We need to encourage small-scale producers that they are still important in the world of food," he said, adding that thousands in Uganda have lost access to land bought by foreign companies producing food for export.

“We need to think more about the real causes of malnutrition in developing countries, and we need to realise the problem is not production, the problem is how do we keep the food we have in circulation."

Traditionally, Ugandan farms grow different crops on the same piece of land. Five acres may be planted with coffee and in between the coffee plants, bananas and cocoa are grown, as well as yams and beans for the family to eat, he said. The crops support each other - in times of drought coffee plants extend their roots to banana plants which naturally hold more water, he added. "This is a very, very productive farming system in Africa." 

In Africa, food lost during or after harvest could feed 300 million people, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. People can go hungry in one part of Uganda while bananas are rotting in the fields and in stores in another part.

http://news.trust.org/item/20160923155135-agt73/

GMO and Nigeria

An agriculture economist, Dr Thaddeaus Thompson, yesterday, warned against accepting food production and preservation using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the agriculture sector, saying that it will be a great mistake.

Thompson made the assertion while considering the food politics played by some agriculture multinationals that are seriously luring some African countries to accept genetically modified (GM) seeds for food production and preservation in order to make huge financial gains at the expense of the health and environment of the people. He particularly cautioned the Nigerian government to consider the gray facts left out in the GM seeds offered by agriculture giants from America and Europe before making any decision to accept it or not, noting that Nigeria lacks the finance and technology to handle the negative side of GM seeds.

He explained “Because genetically modified food production is more focused on financial gains rather than feeding populations, the government must exercise caution engaging in any contractual deal with the big biotech companies which interest is making money. What Nigeria lacks is excessive technology and not excessive food.  Biotech companies make the most gain and not the local farmers. A lot of misleading information has clouded research, leaving gray areas around the GMO conversation.” According to him, “GMO technology was designed for mass production of food and would be necessary for countries in famine, which Nigeria is not, and the government should not think of that option to meet the people’s food demands as there are better and environment friendly food production and preservation technologies that could be adopted for mass food production for the teeming population.

The soil not the oil

“South Sudan has virgin land. Yet we import most of our food from neighbouring countries,” South Sudan’s finance minister, David Deng Athorbei, complained.  South Sudan has ignored agriculture since it achieved its independence in July 2011. Up to 75 per cent of the country’s land area is suitable for farming. During the first two years of independence, the country was producing nearly 245,000 barrels of crude oil per day, raking in billions of dollars in revenue annually. As a result, the elite saw no value in labour-intensive activity like farming. “The business of trade is over. We now need to embark on the business of production. We have to change our ways of doing business. Let’s start with agriculture,” Athorbei advised.

Before the fall of oil prices below $30 a barrel in the international market, oil-rich South Sudan used to import virtually all of its basic requirements from overseas. Chicken came from Brazil. Tomatoes, onions, maize flour, cooking oil, dairy products and beans are still being imported from neighbouring Uganda. China and Dubai export a variety of goods such as soft drinks, smart phones as well as construction materials. In South Sudan prices have continued to spiral beyond the reach of the poor. The crisis has prompted parliament to urge government to reduce inflation to mitigate the sufferings of ordinary persons.

Every year, South Sudan spends between US$200-300 million on food imports, according to estimates for 2013 provided by the Abidjan-based African Development Bank (AFDB). “South Sudan currently imports as much as 50 per cent of its needs, including 40 per cent of its cereals from neighbouring countries, particularly Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia”, according to AFDB.

Campaigners are now focusing on food production to mitigate the impact of a devastating civil war. South Sudan has vast fertile lands, abundant water and climate suitable for production of wide variety of food and cash crops. Experts estimate that up to 300,000 metric tonnes of fish could be harvested on a sustainable basis from its share at the River Nile swamps and tributaries. What food South Sudan produces often is left rotting in the bush due to poor road network to transport the commodities to the market.

Coming together in Tanzania

For decades, farmers and herders in a village located 65 km from Iringa region in Tanzania’s southern highlands, have been vying with one another for water for irrigate fields or pastures for feeding animals; triggering many fatal conflicts. The Pawaga division is considered one of the bread basket areas of Tanzania where people grow maize, rice and vegetables in the valleys whereas others keep animals in the highlands. Despite a clear demarcation of the areas that are controlled by farmers and those controlled by herders, there have been frequent clashes. Deadly conflicts have been raging in Tanzania for years as farmers and herders scramble for resources as climate change continues to take its toll. The worst conflict between pastoralists and farmers occurred in December 2000 in Kilosa district, Morogoro region, where 38 farmers were killed. Hostilities re-ignited in 2008 and eight people were killed, several houses set ablaze. Pastoralists, who are considered more affluent than farmers, are often accused of influencing political decisions by bribing local leaders who allow them to let cattle graze in farmland and trample on crops. Tanzania has approximately 21 million head of cattle, the largest number in Africa after Ethiopia and Sudan. Livestock’s contribution is at least 30 per cent of agricultural gross domestic product.

At the remote village of Itunundu, farmers and pastoralists met to discuss the best way to share land resources while charting out a strategy to prevent unnecessary fights among themselves. No one in the village ever imagined that this meeting would ever take place as the two groups had for long considered themselves enemies: they often clashed for water and pastures to feed their animals thus causing deaths and loss of property.

There are now promising signs that hostility between the two groups may be coming to an end, thanks to an initiative by Tanzania Natural Resources Foundation (TNRF) – a civil society-based initiative on land-based resources that has brought farmers and herders to the negotiating table to build an understanding of the political economy of resources-based conflicts and suggest alternative solutions. Godfrey Massay, TNRF’s land-based investment coordinator, said “Farmers and herders need to know that there are people who benefit from their conflicts and do not wish to see the conflicts resolved.” Massay said the recurring fights is a symptom of a bigger problem that requires joint efforts to resolve them because they involve externally- driven factors of bigger agricultural and conservation interests. A study conducted by TNRF in the area in 2014 revealed that resource-based conflicts in Pawaga are caused by the lack of land use planning, ‘green’ grabbing, increased large-scale agricultural investments, weak policy, corruption and scepticism toward pastoralism as a viable livelihood option. According to Massay, TNRF separately initiated talks with village leaders, farmers and pastoralists group last year to understand their point of view and establish a common area of interest. Both groups have agreed to allow pastoralists graze on rice husks after harvesting seasons for a small fee which is payable to the village government. This innovation has succeeded in eliminating the existing animosity between rival groups.  The number of violent clashes have dropped, Pawaga division officials said. “This shows that no matter how deep the conflict is, it can be resolved by just talking”said Donald Mshauri, Iringa district land officer.

Henry Mahoo, professor of agricultural engineering at Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture, told IPS that in order to resolve tensions between the two groups, a land use plan, which will clearly identify areas under pastoralists’ ownership and those controlled by farmers, should be drawn up. “All concerned parties must be involved in the negotiation process, and there must be a forum where farmers and pastoralists openly talk about their problems,” he said.

‘Philanthrocapitalism’ - another word for global capitalism.

Colin Todhunter on the Countercurrents website reviews the latest report on the Gates philanthropy in Africa. He highlights one criticism - the foundation’s promotion of industrial agriculture across Africa, pushing for the adoption of GM, patented seed systems and chemical fertilisers, all of which undermine existing sustainable, small-scale farming that is providing the vast majority of food security across the continent.

According to the report, the BMGF is promoting a model of industrial agriculture, the increasing use of chemical fertilisers and expensive, patented seeds, the privatisation of extension services and a very large focus on genetically modified seeds. The foundation bankrolls the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in pushing industrial agriculture.

A key area for AGRA is seed policy. The report notes that currently over 80 per cent of Africa’s seed supply comes from millions of small-scale farmers recycling and exchanging seed from year to year. But AGRA is promoting the commercial production of seed and is thus supporting the introduction of commercial seed systems, which risk enabling a few large companies to control seed research and development, production and distribution.

In order for commercial seed companies to invest in research and development, they first want to protect their ‘intellectual property’. According to the report, this requires a fundamental restructuring of seed laws to allow for certification systems that not only protect certified varieties and royalties derived from them, but which actually criminalise all non-certified seed.

The report notes that over the past two decades a long and slow process of national seed law reviews, sponsored by USAID and the G8 along with the BMGF and others, has opened the door to multinational corporations’ involvement in seed production, including the acquisition of every sizeable seed enterprise on the African continent.

At the same time, AGRA is working to promote costly inputs, notably fertiliser, despite evidence to suggest chemical fertilisers have significant health risks for farm workers, increase soil erosion and can trap small-scale farmers in unsustainable debt. The BMGF, through AGRA, is one of the world’s largest promoters of chemical fertiliser.

Some grants given by the BMGF to AGRA have been specifically intended to “help AGRA build the fertiliser supply chain” in Africa. The report describes how one of the largest of AGRA’s grants, worth $25 million, was used to help establish the African Fertiliser Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) in 2012, whose very goal is to “at least double total fertiliser use” in Africa. The AFAP project is being pursued in partnership with the International Fertiliser Development Centre, a body which represents the fertiliser industry.

Another of AGRA’s key programmes since its inception has been support to agro-dealer networks – small, private stockists of transnational companies' chemicals and seeds who sell these to farmers in several African countries. This is increasing the reliance of farmers on chemical inputs and marginalising sustainable agriculture alternatives, thereby undermining any notion that farmers are exercising their 'free choice' (as the neo-liberal evangelists are keen to tell everyone) when it comes to adopting certain agricultural practices.

The report concludes that AGRA’s agenda is the biggest direct threat to the growing movement in support of food sovereignty and agroecological farming methods in Africa. This movement opposes reliance on chemicals, expensive seeds and GM and instead promotes an approach which allows communities control over the way food is produced, traded and consumed. It is seeking to create a food system that is designed to help people and the environment rather than make profits for multinational corporations. Priority is given to promoting healthy farming and healthy food by protecting soil, water and climate, and promoting biodiversity.

Recent evidence from Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute shows that in Africa agroecological farming can increase yields significantly (often greater than industrial agriculture), and that it is more profitable for small farmers. In 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (Olivier de Schutter) called on countries to reorient their agriculture policies to promote sustainable systems - not least agroecology - that realise the right to food. Moreover, the International Assessmentof Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was the work of over 400 scientists and took four years to complete. It was twice peer reviewed and states we must look to smallholder, traditional farming to deliver food security in third world countries through agri-ecological systems which are sustainable.

Colin Todhunter concludes Bill Gates “is spearheading the ambitions of corporate America and the scramble for Africa by global agribusiness.”

Africa and Urban Farming

Inadequate wages have aggravated the situation of many, like Agness Samwenje who lives in Harare’s high density Mufakose suburb, and they have found that turning to urban farming is one way of supplementing their supply of food.

Like jobless 34-year-old Silveira Sinorita from Mozambique who now lives in the Zimbabwean town of Mutare, urban farming has become their job as they battle to feed their families.

“Without employment, I have found that farming here in town is an answer to my food woes at home because I grow my own potatoes, beans, vegetables and fresh maize cobs, whose surplus I then sell,” Sinorita told IPS. 

Pushed to the edge by mounting food deficits, urban farmers in other African countries have even gone beyond mere crop farming. In cities such as Kampala in Uganda and Yaoundé in Cameroon, many urban households are raising livestock, including poultry, dairy cattle and pigs. Urban farming is mushrooming in Africa’s towns and cities. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), more than 800 million people around the world practise urban agriculture and it has helped cushion them against rising food costs and insecurity.

However, urban farming in Africa is often met with opposition from the authorities where land is owned by local municipalities and agricultural experts say that opposing it makes no sense in the face of growing food insecurity.

“Poverty is not sparing even people living in the cities because jobs are getting scarce on the continent and as a result, farming in cities is fast becoming a common trend as people battle to supplement their foods, this despite urban farming being prohibited in towns and cities here,” government agricultural officer Norman Hwengwere told IPS. Zimbabwe’s local authority by-laws prohibit farming on vacant municipal land.

FAO has also reported that Africa’s market gardens are the most threatened by the continent’s growth spurt because they are typically not regulated or supported by governments, and a recent study has called for governments to become more involved. A 2011 research study titled ‘Growing Potential: Africa’s Urban Farmers’, Anna Plyushteva, a PhD student at University College London, argues that greater government involvement is needed for urban agriculture to emerge out of marginality and illegality and deliver greater environmental and social benefits.

“Without official regulation, urban farming can create some serious problems. At present, informal farmers and their produce are exposed to contamination with organic and non-organic pollutants, which is a serious threat to public health,” said Plyushteva.

Zambian development expert Mulubwa Nakalonga, the more people flock to cities, the more pressure they add to the limited resources there.

“There is increased rural-to-urban migration in Africa as people seek better employment opportunities which, however, they rarely find and subsequently turn to farming on open pieces of land in towns in order for them to survive because they have no money to buy foodstuffs,” Nakalonga told IPS. “Often when people migrate from rural areas anywhere here in Africa, they cling to their agricultural heritage of practices through urban agriculture which you see many practising in towns today to evade hunger,” Nakalonga added.

In the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, for example, urban gardens in some communities resemble those found in the country’s rural areas from which people migrated. Despite the opposition elsewhere, some African cities are nevertheless supporting the urban farming trend. The Cape Town local authority in South Africa, for example, introduced its first urban agriculture policy document in 2007, focusing on the importance of urban agriculture for poverty alleviation and job creation.

FAO projects that there will be 35 million urban farmers in Africa by 2020, it is supporting programmes in some countries to capitalise on the benefits. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, FAO’s Urban Horticulture Programme is building on the skills of rural farmers who have come to the cities. The FAO programme in DRC started in response to the country’s massive rural-to-urban exodus following a five-year conflict and now helps local urban farmers to produce 330,000 tons of vegetables each year, while providing employment and income for 16,000 small-scale market gardeners in the country’s towns and cities. The country’s urban farmers sell 90 percent of what they produce in urban markets and supermarkets, according to FAO, helping to feed a swelling urban population as Congolese flee the countryside in search of security.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, various groups and agencies have helped popularise the “vertical farm in a bag” concept in which city dwellers create their own gardens using tall sacks filled with soil from which plant life grows. With hunger hitting both rural and urban African dwellers hard, an increasing number of them believe that urban farming is the way to go.

The Farmers Revolution?

Small-scale agricultural producers are estimated to provide 70 percent of the world's food supply. The United Nations has said that traditional agroecological farming practices and small-scale agriculture are key to feeding the world in the face of global climate crisis. From Nigeria to Tanzania and many points in between, small-scale farmers say they have not been consulted when big agribusiness, working under the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition come to push farmers off their land.

Farmers in rural Bagamoyo district in Tanzania have been ordered off their land after EcoEnergy, a Swedish-owned company, leased more than 20,000 hectares from the government to produce sugar cane. They were not consulted, says says Josephat Mshigati, the head of programmes and policy for Action Aid in Tanzania. Those who were ordered off the land were taken to another area, which created more problems, he says. “They were settled in areas that are not really productive, so for them to invest in producing food, that is another challenge we see. They could be offered all kinds of jobs, there are jobs in the factories,” he says.“But the salaries of those people are very low. So that is another vulnerability… the salary you get, it is hard to buy food,” he adds. 

A coalition of almost 100 social movements, grassroots groups, and civil society organizations are raising alarm about the New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition meeting secretively in Cape Town, South Africa, and are calling for governments to withdraw support for initiative. The G8-led, agribusiness-funded New Alliance is pushing for the approval of laws in 10 African countries that favor agricultural giants like Monsanto at the expense of small farmers and local food security. According to a statement by the civil society coalition Wednesday, policies supported by the New Alliance “facilitate the grabbing of land and other natural resources, further marginalize small-scale producers, and undermine the right to adequate food and nutrition.”

An example of New Alliance's corporate-friendly policy is Ghana's proposed Plant Breeders Bill, or so-called “Monsanto Law,” which would effectively tighten the corporate control of seeds and limit the traditional ability of small farmers to save and share seeds. Other New Alliance-backed proposals in Nigeria and Tanzania threaten to displace thousands of small farmers in massive agribusiness landgrabs to make way for foreign-owned corporate plantations.

Despite the New Alliance claiming a commitment to “reducing poverty and hunger,” its policies actually exacerbate hunger by slashing the rights and access to resources of Africa's small-scale producers for the benefit of foreign agribusiness corporations since it was launched in 2012.

The problem of the New Alliance way is that it does not reflect the ideology of the small-holder farmer, says Nick Dearden, the head of Global Justice Now, a natural resources campaigner, where there’s little or no role for small farmers. “What it’s about is that you’ve got to scale up technological input, you’ve got to allow big corporations, mostly based here in the west, into your countries, and you’ve got to start exporting more food to the west, and richer parts of the world, rather than protecting small farmers,” he says. Dearden says that most food produced for Africans is grown by small-scale farmers. “We know it’s possible. For me the interest of those pushing New Alliance isn’t really in eradicating hunger. It’s in the profit margin of the companies that happen to be headquartered in their countries.” Dearden says that countries need to protect small farmers with regulatory frameworks within the country to prevent more land grab problems throughout the continent, and not rely on a small handful of companies to be able to provide the needs of everybody globally. “I just don’t think it’s feasible in a world where you have such massive inequality as we see today for a company to make profit by feeding those who are most in need of food, that’s to say, the poorest,” he adds.

“The New Alliance is not addressing hunger or food security, but it is providing huge opportunities for big agribusiness companies to restructure food production across Africa to their own advantage,” said African Center for Biosafety Director Mariam Mayet in statement. “Countries in Africa need to develop their own agricultural policies that are effective in meeting the needs of small scale farmers and food sovereignty, rather than being cajoled into having big industrialized agriculture imposed on them through coercive aid mechanisms like the New Alliance.” Mayet added. 

Last month, an independent audit on U.K. foreign aid slammed the New Alliance, characterizing it as “little more than a means of promotion for the companies involved and a chance to increase their influence in policy debates.” In 2013, over 100 African civil society groups called the New Alliance a “new wave of colonialism” opening African markets to transfer agricultural control away from local farmers into the hands of transnational corporations.

Raymond Enoch, the chairman of the Centre for Environmental Education and Development in Jalingo, Taraba state in Nigeria explained “For you to just come into my community and say you want to do something that will change my life, you really need to discuss with me and convince me that what you want to do is to my own benefit…better than what I am doing now… Farmers can freely produce their food, and freely produce their food for domestic market consumption. At least to some extent now, farmers are free to embark on farming without being molested by agribusiness.”

http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20150603-where-s-farmer-s-consent-g8-new-alliance-hurts-africa-says-activists

Conservation Agriculture - The Pros and Cons

More than 80 per cent of the population depends on farming. Agriculture also makes up a significant proportion of their GDP: as much as 45 per cent in Ethiopia and 37 per cent in Malawi. (By comparison, two per cent of Canadians live on a farm and the sector accounts for eight per cent of this country’s GDP.) So the agricultural sector is critical. The foundation for real agricultural growth starts with healthy soils. The Montpellier panel, an elite group of European and African scientists commissioned to analyze development issues on the continent, published a report last December that characterizes two-thirds of Africa’s soils as degraded, along with 30 per cent of the grazing lands and 20 per cent of the forests. That degradation affects the food security of 180 million people and cuts productivity to the tune of US$68 billion annually. You don’t have to be a soil scientist to know Africa’s soils are in trouble.

"The burdens caused by Africa’s damaged soils are disproportionately carried by the continent’s resource-poor farmers," said the panel’s chairman, Sir Gordon Conway, in releasing the report No Ordinary Matter: Conserving, restoring and enhancing Africa’s soil. The Montpellier panel was critical of Africa’s continental agricultural strategy, the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program, and of international donors for not placing a high enough priority on soil health in their strategies to improve the continent’s food security.

"The decline in fertility exists everywhere," Sheleme Beyene, a soil scientist with Ethiopia’s Hawassa University, said in an interview. "In areas where there is a dense population, the land holding is so small that everything from that land is utilized — removed." Grazing animals are turned out after harvest to clean up anything that is left. From the road, they appear to be grazing on dust. We mine the nutrients from the soil. The assumption was that some amount would be returned to the soil through chemical fertilizer.” Beyene said. Across the continent, governments have initiated campaigns to encourage farmers to switch to improved hybrid seeds and use more fertilizer. The continental goal is to increase fertilizer use from an average of eight kilograms per hectare, which is the lowest in the world, to at least 50 kg/ha. “But chemical fertilizer will not return all the nutrients," she added.

The problem is badly degraded biological health in the soil, a declining capacity to bind and create humus, to absorb water and nutrients, and to build organic matter as evidenced by the washed-out roads, deep crevices dividing farmers’ fields, plants left dying with roots exposed after heavy rainstorms and rivers laden with rich, red silt. The Montpellier report identifies water erosion as the single biggest cause of soil loss on the continent, an irony every bit as sad as Africa’s hungry farmers. Rain, moisture so desperately needed to sustain life in this land, is simultaneously at war with its exposed and degraded soils. It pulverizes them before taking them hostage and carrying them away to the sea. All the fertilizer in the world won’t fix that.

The conservation agriculture message is, at its core, an approach which emphasizes minimal soil disturbance to prevent erosion and conserve moisture while employing strategies that support healthy soil biology. Some farmers use oxen and what is known as a "ripper," a device that slices a narrow opening for the seed, instead of a plough. While many use a combination of chemical and organic fertilizers, just as many produce some of their own fertilizer by growing nitrogen-fixing legumes, sometimes intercropped with staple cereal crops. Farmers typically farm with a hoe. They plant crops into rows and then pull those rows into ridges, like we would hill potatoes, sometimes a foot high, leaving deep gullies between rows. It’s back-breaking work. Under conservation agriculture, farmers do away with those ridges. They instead make planting basins into which they put a small amount of manure and later poke their seed in with a stick. Without the ridges, they can plant their rows closer together, which increases the ground cover, paving the way for higher yields. They use mulch made from past crop residues or composted plant material between the rows to help suppress weeds, hold in moisture and build organic matter. In this environment, higher-yielding hybrid seeds have a better chance of meeting their yield potential. The extra moisture and organic matter have resulted in a doubling of maize yields. More stable production of maize, the staple crop, means farmers can sow less of their farm to it, opening the door to better crop rotations.

Christian Thierfelder, a senior agronomist, explained how the soil changes under conservation agriculture management. "When you look at the soil, the soil (under Conservation Agriculture) is very loose, and when you get a heavy rainfall, the water can infiltrate because there is a lot of biological activity — earthworms, beetles and ants and so on that create these bio pools, like a sponge," he said. "The rainfall hits the soil surface and infiltrates, whereas on the conventional system, it just runs off or stands there." The traditionally farmed soil was hard and gravelly. "The conventional system can only make use of the water that is in the ridge and not further down in the soil," he said. Plant roots grown using conservation agriculture techniques are able to penetrate deeper into the soil and reach for added moisture. "And also, because of the residues on top, there is less evaporation of water — it just has more water available for plant growth." That’s "climate-smart" in a region where sporadic rainfalls can wreak havoc with food production.

Despite the promotional efforts of hundreds of projects offered uptake of conservation agriculture by smallholder farmers in Africa has been slow — less than five per cent in most countries. That’s given rise to a debate over whether this approach, which relies on a complex understanding of how soil, water and plants interact, is the answer to productivity issues facing resource-poor farmers who have little education and a pressing need for immediate boosts in yield. In a 2009 study titled Conservation agriculture and smallholder farming in Africa: The heretic’s view, four U.S.-based researchers challenged the notion conservation agriculture is a solution for all sub-Saharan African farmers. In their view, the empirical evidence supporting these campaigns is lacking and contradictory. As well, they argue the claims for the potential of the technology in Africa are based on the experience in the Americas, "where the effects of tillage were replaced by heavy dependence on herbicides and fertilizers."

Yet, "it is actively promoted by international research and development organizations, with such strong advocacy that critical debate is stifled," wrote study authors Ken Giller, Ernst Witter, March Corbeels and Pablo Tittonell. "Concerns include decreased yields often observed with Conservation Agriculture, increased labour requirements when herbicides are not used, an important gender shift of the labour burden to women and a lack of mulch due to poor productivity and due to the priority given to feeding of livestock with crop residues."

Research published in the journal Nature in 2014 concluded that simply eliminating tillage from these systems might actually reduce yields and increase food insecurity. "The common assumption that no-till is going to play a large role in the sustainable intensification of agriculture doesn’t necessarily hold true, according to our research findings," said Cameron Pittelkow, who co-authored the Nature study as a post-doctoral scholar at University of California-Davis. These researchers concluded the only way conservation agriculture works is when it is part of a system that also includes crop rotation and mulches that retain water, suppress weeds and improve soil quality. Those aren’t always available to resource-poor farmers. The authors also pointed out some of the promised benefits, such as increased fertility and weed suppression, take years before they become noticeable.

In January, the Journal of Sustainable Development published an article documenting high abandonment rates of conservation agriculture once NGO support is withdrawn. Some have suspected smallholder farmers who participated in the projects were only there for the free fertilizer, seed and food served on the extension days. But that article also noted persistent adoption was more prevalent among the poor, which "supports claims that Conservation Agriculture is a pro-poor technology."

Chris Woodring, a researcher and small-scale farmer from Kentucky, was assigned to interview 50 farmers across five African countries about their experiences with conservation agriculture, documenting where it is working, where it is not and identifying the challenges smallholders face in adopting the soil-saving methods. Conservation agriculture proponents believe it offers the best opportunity to stave off a looming environmental and human catastrophe in Africa. But the diversity of these farmers, their remote locations and cultural and language barriers make theirs a difficult story to tell. People don’t necessarily measure the success of their farming in yield per hectare or map out their plots with laboratory precision. Rather, it is based on whether their farm produced enough to feed the family from one crop to the next, whether their diets have become more diverse and whether there is enough money to send the kids to school or buy sugar, soap or a cellphone. Understanding the cultural context and why there is a difference between what they say and what they do can also be difficult.

It is hard to find enough of the mulch they use to cover the ground between the rows of maize, especially in the early years. During the dry season, farmers with livestock often allow their cattle to roam freely looking for forage. Landowners have no fences to keep them from eating the mulch. As well, the decaying crop residues attract mice, which brings the "mice-catchers," children who set the field on fire so they can catch the rodents as they flee. Once caught and their entrails removed, the critters are boiled and roasted until they are crispy and consumed as a delicacy. Then there is what one farmer described as the "man problem," a gender-based competition within families over resource allocation. "It is customary here that the husbands are in control of the land, so they are the ones who share a portion for them to practise Conservation Agriculture," an interpreter explained. "Most of them are not interested, because they are not seeing instant benefits, so they just give small portions to their wives, because it is mostly the wives who have adopted the technology."

"In Malawi, food production is done by women, and so you find that food becomes a gender issue. Men would prefer to grow a cash crop where women would like to look after their families. So hunger becomes the main issue for the women,’ said Sain Mskambo, a project officer with the NGO Find Your Feet, based in Mzuzu, Malawi. The tobacco industry began contracting with smallholder farmers here in the early 2000s after large commercial tobacco-producing companies went bankrupt. Farmers are provided with inputs and advance cash payments to tide them over until their crop can be sold. Local extension workers say farmers sometimes don’t get enough from their crop to pay those loans back. But they also say that when prices are good, businesses and the booze halls in the region do a booming trade when the tobacco is sold in May. Cellphones, televisions and new clothes don’t do much for food security, and many of these families still struggle to find enough food to eat during the lean months. But they do bring with them a certain status. Hunger here is often hidden behind a flashy dress shirt. It’s a conundrum for NGOs that have been championing conservation agriculture as a means of improving food security. Helping farmers sustainably produce tobacco isn’t what most donors have in mind when they send cheques to help alleviate poverty and hunger.

Woodring’s work, now completed, reveals interesting patterns. Weeds are by far the biggest challenge for these farmers. Many have started using pesticides, but with mixed results.

"When they use mulching to control weeds or hand-hoeing to control weeds, then that really limits their adoption of conservation agriculture to the amount of labour they have to put the system into practice," Woodring said.

Consistent with the North American experience, pesticides offer a less labour-intensive alternative to hand-weeding, which makes them exceedingly popular with women, who do most of the weeding. But many smallholders can’t afford to buy pesticides, and if they do, they often don’t know how to use them safely. We watched as a young woman wearing no protection measured out the insect killer cypermethrin from a bottle of concentrate into a backpack sprayer to mix. When she donned the backpack sprayer and began spraying a field of cowpeas, most of her skin was exposed. As well, how well these products work depends on rainfall. Farmers can lose their investments — and their crop. That spells hunger. "If you spray and it doesn’t rain for five days, it won’t work," said Wilfred Hamakumba, who has been practising conservation agriculture on his farm near Choma, Zambia, for 13 years.

Woodring heard repeatedly from conservation agriculture farmers that their yields increased, which has improved the quality and quantity of the family diet, as well as their income. That has positive implications for child nutrition, the family’s overall health and access to education. It is an investment that pays off in spades. "I think the potential for CA is somewhat greater than actual adoption," Woodring said Woodring, who has been monitoring the progression of reduced-tillage agriculture across Africa for the past seven years, said the issue isn’t whether conservation agriculture is the right approach, it is how best to make it happen. The more we work the soil conventionally, the worse our soils will become, the less productive they become… With conservation agriculture, your soil improves, it improves dramatically in many cases."

From here

Nurturing the soil

A report published last month by the Montpellier Panel – an eminent group of agriculture, ecology and trade experts from Africa and Europe – says about 65 percent of Africa’s arable land is too damaged to sustain viable food production. The Montpellier Panel has recommended, among others, that African governments and donors invest in land and soil management, and create incentives particularly on secure land rights to encourage the care and adequate management of farm land. According to the Montpellier Panel report, an estimated 180 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are affected by land degradation.

The burdens caused by Africa’s damaged soils are disproportionately carried by the continent’s resource-poor farmers,” says the chair of the Montpellier Panel, Professor Sir Gordon Conway

According to the FAO, human pressure on the resource has left a third of all soils on which food production depends degraded worldwide. The amount of arable and productive land available per person in 2050 will be a fourth of the level it was in 1960 as the FAO says it can take up to 1,000 years to form a centimetre of soil. A truly disturbing picture of the problems of soil was painted by the National Geographic magazine in a recent edition. “By 1991, an area bigger than the United States and Canada combined was lost to soil erosion—and it shows no signs of stopping,” wrote agroecologist Jerry Glover in the article “Our Good Earth.” In fact, says Glover, “native forests and vegetation are being cleared and converted to agricultural land at a rate greater than any other period in history. We still continue to harvest more nutrients than we replace in soil,” he says. If a country is extracting oil, people worry about what will happen if the oil runs out. But they don’t seem to worry about what will happen if we run out of soil.

Adds Rattan Lal, soil scientist: “Political stability, environmental quality, hunger, and poverty all have the same root. In the long run, the solution to each is restoring the most basic of all resources, the soil.”

Meanwhile, a new report by U.S. researchers cites global warming as another impact on soil with devastating consequences. According to the report “Climate Change and Security in Africa”, the continent is expected to see a rise in average temperature that will be higher than the global average. Annual rainfall is projected to decrease throughout most of the region, with a possible exception of eastern Africa.

“Less rain will have serious implications for sub-Saharan agriculture, 75 percent of which is rain-fed… Average predicated production losses by 2050 for African crops are: maize 22 percent, sorghum 17 percent, millet 17 percent, groundnut 18 percent, and cassava 8 percent. Hence, in the absence of major interventions in capacity enhancements and adaption measures, warming by as little as 1.5C threatens food production in Africa significantly.”

Soil health is critical to enhancing the productivity of Africa’s agriculture, a major source of employment and a huge contributor to GDP, says development expert and acting divisional manager in charge of Visioning & Knowledge management at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Wole Fatunbi.

“The use of simple and appropriate tools that suits the smallholders system and pocket should be explored while there is need for policy interventions including strict regulation on land use for agricultural purposes to reduce the spate of land degradation,” Fatunbi told IPS. He explained that 15 years ago he developed a set of technologies using vegetative material as green manure to substitute for fertiliser use in the Savannah of West Africa. The technology did not last because of the laborious process of collecting the material and burying it to make compost. “If technologies do not immediately lead to more income or more food, farmers do not want them because no one will eat good soil,” said Fatunbi. “Soil fertility measures need to be wrapped in a user friendly packet. Compost can be packed as pellets with fortified mineral fertilisers for easy application.” Fatunbi cites the land terrace system to manage soil erosion in the highlands of Uganda and Rwanda as a success story that made an impact because the systems were backed legislation. Also, the use of organic manure in the Savannah region through an agriculture system integrating livestock and crops has become a model for farmers to protect and promote soil health.

The Kenyan GM Debate

The debate over the pros and cons of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has polarized Kenyans from all walks of life and threatens huge investments in scientific research to re-invent food production in the country. A growing body of scientific research hails the potential of genetic engineering to revolutionize food production, yet an equally large population of skeptics from the Kenyan green movement warns of its potential dangers.

Richard Oduor, Chairman of Kenya University Biotechnology Consortium and head of biotechnology department at Kenyatta University, said condemnation of genetically modified organisms is not based on science but unjustified paranoia. “Science is clear that as a country, we cannot afford to employ old methods to produce food and meet huge demands from a growing population. No country has ever become food secure through traditional farming systems,” he said. Kenyan scientists have been lobbying the government to lift a ban on GMOs. Oduor said the ban was not based on scientific evidence, adding that Kenya risks becoming a perpetually food aid dependent nation unless the government fast-tracks the adoption of biotech crops.

Marion Mutugi, a Lecturer at Kabianga University, cautioned against introduction of biotech crops based on their potential threats to human health and indigenous biodiversity. “We need to address fundamental issues like food sovereignty, protection of natural capital and indigenous knowledge before adopting genetic engineering in agriculture,” Mutugi said. “There are moral, ethical and health concerns that should not be ignored. Scientists, regulators, industry and consumer groups should address those concerns.”

The Kenyan green movement has conducted nationwide campaign against the introduction of genetically modified organisms. Wanjiru Kamau, an official at Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN), warned We require a precautionary approach to avert potential risks of biotech crops to our rich biodiversity. Smallholders will be at the mercy of multinational giants pushing for adoption of GMOs.”

http://www.coastweek.com/3750-agriculture-04.htm

Soiled Africa

Neglecting the health of Africa's soil will lock the continent into a cycle of food insecurity for generations to come, a report by the Montpellier Panel has warned. The Montpellier Panel - made up of agricultural, trade and ecology experts from Europe and Africa - warned that land degradation reduced soil fertility, leading to lower crop yields and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

"In Africa, the impacts are substantial where 65% of arable land, 30% of grazing land and 20% of forests are already damaged," it observed. The report said the panel's members believed that soil was the "cornerstone of food security and agricultural development and its care, restoration, enhancement and conservation should intuitively become a major global priority".

Panel chairman Sir Prof Gordon Conway, from Imperial College London, told BBC News: "Serious land degradation accounts for about a quarter of land area of sub-Saharan Africa - it is a vast area," he said. "There are about 180 million people who are living on land that is in some way or another degraded. It is really very severe." The problem threatened food production in a region that was already experiencing very low crop yields, he explained. "The average yield in sub-Saharan Africa is about one tonne per hectare. In India, it is about two-and-a-half tonnes, while in China it is more than three tonnes per hectare. So in Africa, we have the combination of land degradation, poor yields and a growing population."

Prof. Conway described the issue as a "crisis of land degradation and soil management", adding: "We have got to do something about it…Africa already imports US $40bn worth of food each year, it is an enormous amount. If we do not produce more food in Africa, that will get worse and worse, and the continent will suffer as a result. "Secondly, if we do not pay attention to land degradation in Africa then the land itself will continue to degrade and that will further reduce the yields we are getting at the moment. We know what you have to do to improve the quality of soil, but the big challenge is providing the finds and making sure that there are incentives for farmers.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30277514

South African Land Question

According to Oxfam's land policy adviser, Robin Palmer, "Land is often all that people have as a bottom line for livelihood security."

"Land is a major resource in women's livelihood strategies. However, in general women are discriminated against in terms of the robustness of their rights in land, and this can create severe hardships for them and for those who depend on them. Generally their rights in land are secondary rights, derived through their membership in households and secured primarily through marriage," analyst Cherryl Walker said in a study on women's access to land.

Countries that were "settled" under colonialism - Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe - share a similar profile of racially skewed land distribution, dual tenure systems based on received law and customary law, and a dispossessed black rural population confined to degraded and overcrowded communal lands. Land is a highly charged issue. South African land expert Scott Drimie explained that, for Southern Africa, reform must be seen in the context of restitution. "The primary reason is about history. There are vast inequalities that have to be addressed for historical and economic reasons."

The reality has been that governments have failed to allocate the financial and human resources needed to address the land issue, said a think-tank of land experts who met earlier this year in South Africa. A common view is that governments in the region have been complicit in the preservation of land alienated by a powerful elite. Even liberation movements, once in power, are often accused of dropping their radicalism, preferring to join the privileged. Political commitment to land redistribution has been followed by a switch of emphasis to so-called economic goals, rather than the eradication of landlessness and/or poverty.

"Indeed, debates about land reform everywhere have seen a confrontation between those who believe that land reform must be centred on the redistribution of ownership (or land rights over) productive agricultural land in favour of the rural poor, and those opposed to extensive redistribution, who wish the reform to focus on measures to raise agricultural productivity and/or create a new class of (black) African commercial farmers," the think-tank noted. The received wisdom is that small is beautiful and small-scale farmers are invariably more productive than large estates. However, new comparative studies are beginning to suggest that in Southern Africa this might not always hold true, and small family farms may not be able to compete so well in increasingly liberalised and competitive markets. "Where rains are both unpredictable and unreliable, which is over much of the region, the mechanised farmer can readily take advantage of favourable soil moisture conditions... This flexibility is not available to small-scale farmers dependent on borrowed oxen or draught animals weakened by fodder shortages during the long dry season," the think-tank said. But Drimie believes the small-scale versus large-scale debate "may in many ways be a false dichotomy in terms of policy choices". Rather than a blanket model, a more nuanced blend based on location (climate, land suitability) and resources within a context of rural development would better achieve poverty alleviation.

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We need to change to survive climate change

Changes in climate such as higher temperatures and reduced water supplies, along with other factors like biodiversity loss and ecosystems degradation, affect agriculture. According to Science, a leading international research journal, by 2030 Southern Africa and South Asia will be the two regions in the world whose crop production is most affected by climate change. Climate change comes with never-before-experienced impacts. For example, crop yields and growing seasons will decrease even as changing rain patterns will worsen people’s access to water. Yet Africa’s population is projected to reach 2 billion in less than 37 years, and in 86 years three out of every four people added to the planet will be African. That is why experts have warned that if the current situation persists, Africa will be fulfilling only 13% of its food needs by 2050. This situation will further threaten about 65% of African workers who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods including children and the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. Hunger already affects about 240 million Africans daily. The situation will be dire for children who need proper nourishment to succeed in their education. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has estimated that African countries could lose between 2% and 16% of gross domestic product due to stunting of children as a result of malnutrition.

Food insecurity will likely lead to social unrest, as has been the case in the past. For example, between 2007 and 2008, riots took place in many countries when prices of staples peaked. In 2010, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Mozambique after wheat prices went up by 25% due to a global wheat shortage. The increase in bread prices led to arson, violence, looting and even deaths.

 The Africa Adaptation Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme, the UN organ responsible for promoting sustainable use of the environment, confirmed the World Bank’s recent findings that with warming of about 2 degrees C, all crop yields across sub-Saharan Africa will decrease by 10% by the 2050s; greater warming (which is more likely) will cause crop yields to decrease by up to 15% or 20%. Further bad news for African agriculture is that by the middle of this century, wheat production could decrease by 17%, maize production by 5%, sorghum production by 15% and millet production by 10%. Additionally, if climate warming exceeds 3 degrees C, all present-day cropping areas for maize, millet and sorghum will be unsuitable for those crops. In the coming years, water for agriculture will be stretched to a painful extent. In Africa, 95% of agriculture relies on rainfall for water, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The World Bank notes it is very likely that by 2020 the total availability of blue and green water (from rains and rivers) in all of Africa could decline by more than 10%.

 Africa needs an approach that works with nature, not against it. The most pessimistic forecast about the impact of climate change suggests that Africa may lose 47% of agricultural revenue by 2100, while the most optimistic predicts a loss of only 6%. The latter scenario depends on the assumption that climate change adaptation practices and infrastructure are already in place. But the difference between 6% and 47% is huge.

There is a continuing argument as to whether the industrial agricultural revolution will solve some or all of Africa’s climate change problems. However, experts maintain that industrial agriculture currently accounts for one third of all greenhouse gas emissions—the very element most responsible for climate change. Additionally, they believe that the resources and infrastructure required to operate an industrial agricultural system in Africa are impractical for smallholder farmers. New machines also mean fewer hands, which may increase joblessness while reducing wages, affecting many who depend on agriculture. Because current practices cannot meet future demands, Africa must apply new and better approaches.

One of the options being advocated is the ecosystem-based adaptation,, which is to mitigate climate change impact through the use natural systems such as drought-resistant varieties, more efficient methods of water storage and more diversity in crop rotation, says UNEP. In Zambia, 61% of farmers who applied an ecosystem-based adaptation, such as natural resource conservation or sustainable organic agricultural practices, reported surplus yields. Some yields even increased by up to 60%, while sales of surplus crops grew from 25.9% to 69%. In Burkina Faso, farmers are using indigenous methods to rehabilitate land. By digging small pits (locally referred to as zaï) on barren plots and filling them with organic matter, some Burkinabe farmers are able to add nutrients to the soil while enhancing groundwater storage to improve crop productivity. These farmers have reclaimed 200,000 to 300,000 hectares of degraded lands and have produced an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 additional tonnes of cereal.

Other options include protecting watersheds and reinforcing their capacity to hold water and carry it to those who need it most; using integrated pest management, which is a natural and cost-effective way of protecting crops; using agroforestry, intercropping and crop rotation, which bring nutrient diversity to fields and ensure continued and improved production yields in a natural way; maintaining forests and using forest foods; using natural fertilizers like manure; and using natural pollinators like bees, which, according to a recent study, could increase fruit yields by 5%.

 Building on such good practices, and properly managing the unavoidable effects of climate change, will unlock Africa’s potential to feed itself. The future need not be a future of want.

http://www.spyghana.com/despite-climate-change-africa-can-feed-africa/

Kenya's Drought and Food Shortage

In 2003, Kenya was among the 53 African countries who signed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme to accelerate growth and reduce mass poverty, food insecurity and hunger in Africa by allocating at least 10 percent of their national budget to agriculture. Oxfam International statistics show that only nine countries have met this threshold. In the 2012/13 financial year, the agricultural budget was 3.6 percent of the national budget, far below the 10 percent threshold. To bridge the gap, there has been an increased donor participation in the agricultural sector, according to ActionAid International Kenya. Yet the ministry of agriculture has been unable to utilise the funds; only 61 percent of its budget from the previous financial year was spent.

According to the regional Drought Management Authority, lower Mukurweini in Kenya has only been receiving 200 mm of annual rainfall, which has resulted in a dire food shortage. But Mukurweini is not the only region in the midst of drought and food shortages. Arid areas are the most affected, particularly Turkana County in Rift Valley Province, where half of the residents – about 400,000 people – are facing starvation.

The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) says that in total at least one quarter of the 41 million people in this East African nation lack sufficient food and 1.7 million are under threat of hunger and starvation. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, aside from a few areas, no part of the country is food secure as this season’s harvest of maize – the country’s staple food – was not enough to feed the nation. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations says the country is short of about 10 million bags of maize and warned that the drought is expected to reach its peak in August.

Agricultural researchers like Professor Mary Abukutsa-Onyango have blamed an over reliance on rain-fed agriculture for the shortage. According to the ministry of agriculture, less than seven percent of cropped land here is under irrigation and the government’s plan to place half a million hectares under irrigation, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas, has not made sufficient progress.
Abukutsa-Onyango, professor of horticulture at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told IPS that in the arid Turkana County for instance, “the Todonyang irrigation scheme project, which was launched in 2009 and was meant to put 12,000 hectares of land under irrigation for agricultural production to solve food insecurity in the arid North Eastern Province, seems to have stalled.”
It’s a sad development as last September, the government discovered an estimated 250 billion cubic metres of freshwater – enough to supply the country for 70 years - in Turkana County.

Abukutsa-Onyango added that there was also too much focus on maize as a staple crop.
“We are not growing other crops such as sorghum, finger millet, arrow roots, yams and bambara nuts as well as indigenous fruits and vegetables which can grow easily in many parts of the country, creating alternative sources of food,” she said. Although KARI received less than one percent of the national budget, the research institute has continued to release a variety of drought-resistant crops. But these have had low adoptive rates among farmers because, Abukutsa-Onyango said, “the cost of hybrid seeds is beyond the reach of most farmers.”

Food security expert Winnie Mapenzi told IPS that small-scale farmers, who produce three-quarters of the country’s food, have been unable to produce enough to feed the nation due to various challenges.
“They have little access to inputs and financial services, and poor infrastructure,” she said, explaining that this meant that smallholder farmers were unable to access markets to sell any surplus harvest. It also meant, she said, that they had “poor storage facilities which result in after-harvest losses.

The Paternalistic West

 Paternalistic thinking from Western firms will not solve Africa's agricultural problems, which need to be addressed from African viewpoints, Zambia's Agriculture Minister told a global forum.

"One of the challenges that Africa has is that the world thinks it can think for us," Minister Robert Sichinga said. "Please, for goodness sake, move away from this paternalistic attitude of thinking that you can think for us."

Sichinga said that, while  Johan Steyn, Managing Director of Cargill Inc. was from South Africa, he was representing Cargill, and "with all due respect, there is no way Cargill can be part of a solution." The minister took issue with the unlisted U.S. firm, one of the world's biggest agricultural commodities companies, paying farmers in Zambia low prices for their cotton crop.

Sichinga also criticized the forum's focus on high-tech solutions for agriculture that were irrelevant to Africa. "Who will pay for this technology and equipment and salaries that are needed for researchers not to migrate to other countries," he said.

The forum included presentations by Mark Post, a professor of physiology at Maastricht University who is the scientist behind laboratory-grown beef, meat grown from stem cells that cost 250,000 euros and five years of research to produce.

"Are you sure that we can be able to use now the new burger made out of stem cell technology? Is that what you expect of someone in a village with less than primary education to undertake?" Sichinga asked.

Tanzania's Land Wars

Tanzania has approximately 21 million head of cattle, the largest number in Africa after Ethiopia and Sudan. According to the ministry of livestock and fisheries development, livestock contributes to at least 30 percent of agricultural GDP.

Tanzania's ministry for agriculture, food security and cooperatives says that small-scale farmers produce more than 90 percent of the country's food. Of the country's 94.5 million hectares, only half - 44 million hectares - is arable land.

 Of Tanzania's 42 million people, only 0.02 percent have traditional land ownership titles.

The disputes over land and water have also caused food insecurity among farmers, many of whom have been unable to harvest crops for fear of reprisals from enraged pastoralists.

On January 12, 2014, ten people were killed in Kiteto district in central Tanzania when Maasai pastoralists allegedly invaded villages in the disputed Embroi Murtangosi forest reserve and set homes ablaze. in December 2000 in Kilosa district, in the Morogoro region, where 38 farmers were killed. Hostilities reignited in 2008 and eight people were killed, several houses set alight and livestock stolen.

Experts say that these resource-based conflicts are also fuelled by ethnic hatred, dwindling resources, poor land management and population growth.

Yefred Myenzi, a researcher from the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute known locally as HakiArdhi, said that most of the fighting over land was the indirect result of decisions and actions taken by the state through its various agencies. "We have seen the influx of investors who take swathes of land to start commercial farming ranching or mining activities, in the process triggering conflicts with local people who are evicted from their land without due process," he added. He blamed the existing land tenure system for sidelining pastoral communities, since no land has been set aside for them. "Although land laws require every village to have in place a land use plan, many villages are yet to implement this due to conflict," he said.

Henry Mahoo, professor of agricultural engineering at Tanzania's Sokoine University of Agriculture, said that in order to resolve tensions between the two groups, a land use plan, which would clearly identify areas under pastoralists' ownership and those controlled by farmers, should be drawn up. "The problem [behind] these clashes is deeper than we think. All concerned parties must be involved in the negotiation process, and there must be a forum where farmers and pastoralists openly talk about their problems," he said.

Meshack Saidimu, a Maasai pastoralist in Mbalali, said that most of the disputes occurred because the government had not set aside areas for pastoralists. "I think we are being made scapegoats for all these problems. The Maasai are disciplined people, they don't just hurt somebody for the sake of it," he said.

The Blooming of the Sahel

Climate change is expected to hit Africa hardest.  It is increasingly likely that scientific warnings that the world could warm by 2°C in the next 20 or 30 years will come true.  In such a case, pastoralism will be imperiled.  The effects on the African continent will be dramatically more devastating under a warming scenario of 4°C.

Over the centuries, some 16 million pastoralists have perfected the art of survival in the Sahel, raising sheep and livestock in some of the most harsh and unforgiving environments anywhere on the planet.  Meat yields from the Sahel rival those from some of the best ranches in Australia and the United States.  Currently, half of the meat and two-thirds of the milk produced and consumed in the countries of West Africa originates in the Sahel.

Farming is  the dominant industry in the region, which accounts for one-third and more of all economic output in the Sahel. This in turn empowers the women of the Sahel, as women account for the majority of Africa’s farmers. Supporting pastoralism with more climate smart-policies; reducing vulnerability to drought, flooding and other disasters; and raising more healthy livestock through timely vaccines, are all necessary to help communities adapt to the ecological harshness of the Sahel.

However pastoralism is facing multiple threats. Rapid population growth, conflict, volatile food prices, animal diseases, and shrinking grazing areas and water resources are steadily jeopardizing the survival of the pastoralists of the Sahel.  

Sahel’s vast water resources are largely untapped.  In a region where farming is the predominant economic activity, sadly, only 20 percent of the Sahel’s irrigation potential has been developed.  Worse still, one quarter of the area equipped with irrigation lies in a state of disrepair.

Bringing more water to parched lands in the Sahel will not only improve food production but place more food on family dinner tables...Climate-smart agriculture can increase yields... help protect biodiversity, improve soil fertility, and conserve the environment.

Makhtar Diop,
World Bank Group’s Vice President for Africa