Many people working to change or modernize
Africa’s agriculture are frustrated by the slow pace of efficiency and
productivity gains. The small farm persists and the industrial monoculture has
not launched.
Fertilizer and pesticide use, scale of mechanization
and land under irrigation remains miserably low in sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks
to low crop and animal productivity, hundreds of millions are hungry and
malnourished.
Malnutrition and hunger stalks Africa’s
children; kills millions and leaves millions more cognitively impaired and
unable to live up to achieve their full potential as students and as productive
citizens. But is an Asian style Green
Revolution necessarily the transformation that is needed to make Africa food
sufficient? Some have suggested that such a thing as an African Green
Revolution is feasible. But what really is an African Green Revolution?
The critical challenge that must be
addressed with respect to Africa’s agriculture is both complex and urgent. How
do we produce sufficient, nutritious and affordable food for a rapidly growing
and prosperous population under conditions of water and nutrient stress, while
reducing degradation and maintaining critical biodiversity?
The Asian Green Revolution was not
confronted by the challenges that Africa’s agricultural transformation must
deal with. Hence, a uniquely African agricultural transformation must seek to
enhance five fitness goals if it is to succeed.
First is Genetic fitness. Africa’s farming
landscapes must remain a veritable storehouse of vital plant and animal biodiversity
including soil micro flora and fauna necessary to ensure stability and
resilience at the farm and landscape scale. Simplified industrial monocultures
must be avoided at all costs. Second is Ecological fitness. This relates
maintaining critical ecological function at landscape scale; maintaining
vegetation and animal assemblages that enable and sustain vital flows of water
and nutrients.
Third is Institutional fitness. This relates
to proper functioning of private and public institutions to enable sufficient
provision of vital support services such as markets, financial, advisory,
services, policy and regulation, infrastructure and more importantly,
inter-sectoral coordination. These are necessary to de-risk the agricultural
sector and attract the necessary investment.
Fourth is People fitness; a strong focus on
human welfare. It must be about providing equitable access to nutritious food
for Africans, not cheap unhealthy food that fuels the obesity and micronutrient
deficiency epidemic, and serves a national or international agro-industrial
complex. It must not be about land grabs and displacement of millions of local
farmers. Smallholder framers must be integral to the transformation and any
transition must be humane and social just.
Fifth is Knowledge and Evidence fitness. The
burst of big data and advances in technology must drive agricultural productivity
and operational efficiency. Moreover, agricultural blockchain services can
rebuild the broken food system, from the small farm household level to the supermarket
shelf in the big city by leveraging network potential for distributed
governance.
Africa’s agricultural transformation must
not follow the flawed model of the Green Revolution, which has had disastrous
consequences on soil, water and biodiversity resource, obliterated indigenous
cultures and livelihoods, and stripped nutrition out of our foods.
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