Alarmed
by the growing poverty and hunger in Africa the international community has
mounted a vigorous campaign to transform Africa’s agriculture in ways could
produce a Green Revolution for Africa. Development experts and donor agencies
have made the case for ramping up global capital flows to revitalize Africa’s
agriculture through increased use of mineral fertilizers, high yield seeds,
putting more land under irrigation and increased use of pesticides.
The attraction
of the Asia’s Green Revolution is that it contributed to significant poverty
reduction and halted the tide of hunger, which threatened to engulf millions of
people in Asia. In some countries, the application of mineral fertilizers, the
use of irrigation, pesticides and high yielding varieties has saved the
conversion of millions of hectares of valuable ecosystems into agricultural land.
In its
conception, a Green Revolution for Africa is essentially a redux of Asia’s
Green Revolution. This is especially problematic given that Asia’s Green
Revolution is beginning to unravel.
In rural Punjab farmers
have fallen into debt because they are unable to keep up with the rising cost
of inputs – fertilizers, irrigation pumps and regular fresh supplies of seed –
which are the hallmark of the Green Revolution. Moreover, Indian farmers unable to repay loans
and faced with spiraling interest often see suicide as the only solution.
According
to the Asian Development Bank, 38% of irrigated area in Pakistan is now
waterlogged and 14% of the land surface is too saline for agricultural use.
More than 3 million hectares of land in the Indus Plains of Pakistan is rigged
with tube-wells and drains at the cost of millions of dollars but the
reclamation is only partially successful.
The
proponents of the Green Revolution have argued that the unintended negative
consequences we now see in Asia and in the OECD and Latin America were caused
not by technology but by fundamental failure in policy and institutions. The jury
is still out.
Intended
or unintended, the impact of high input industrial style agriculture has had
huge impacts on water quality and quantity, soil quality and greenhouse gasses.
The slowdown in yield growth that has been observed since the mid-1980s can be
attributed, in part, to the degradation of the natural resource base and the
inoperable undermining of ecosystem services, which are vital to agriculture.
As a
PhD student, I learned the fundamental ecological principles that undergird soil
productivity. I did not learn this from esoteric simulation models or
laboratory experiments of a professor of agro-ecology. I learned from the
decades of experimentation and the dogged experience of farmers on the edge of
Kakamega Forest in Western Kenya.
Put
against these time tested, biologically informed African smallholder farmer intuitions
the agro-industrial methods of modern agriculture must appear dangerously
naïve. Modern technologies can no more manufacture a gram of soil with a tank
of chemicals than we can engineer a rainforest or produce a single pollinator
bee or an earthworm.
Our
best hope for sustainable agriculture requires above all, the maintenance of
biological diversity and complexity in agricultural landscapes. Rather than
perpetuate the myth of resource-poor smallholder farmers, it is time to
understand farmers for what they are; solid professionals with knowledge and
skills rooted in time and space. Their ability to farm with nature provides the
opportunity for understanding the ecological foundations of agriculture. It is only
through such understanding of the ecology of agricultural systems that doors
will open to new management options that can deliver global food systems that
are environmentally, socially and economically viable.
The concept of sustainable agricultural
intensification and environmental stewardship is gaining currency in scientific,
policy and institutional circles as a goal for both public and private action.
Moreover, after Rio+20, the concept of a Green Economy is gaining increasing
currency in sustainability lexicon. The Green Economy is an alternative vision
for growth, which unlike GDP promotes a triple bottom line: sustaining
economic, social and environmental wellbeing.
A Green
Revolution for Africa must learn from the failures of Asia’s Green Revolution
and its western agro-industrial foundations. A
Green Revolution for Africa must not be measured on narrow criteria, such as
profitability or yields. It should be evaluated on how well it addresses
environmental sustainability and household food security, especially access to
food and food quality.
More
importantly, a Green Revolution for Africa must:
1. Enhance biomass recycling, optimize nutrient availability and
balance nutrient flows;
2.
Secure favorable
soil conditions for plant growth by enhancing soil biotic activity, managing
organic matter and soil moisture;
3. Enhance beneficial
biological interactions and promote key ecological process through diversified
farming landscapes comprising multiple species of crops, grasses and
trees;
4.
Recognize
and reward farmers for providing ecosystem services (good water quality;
protection biodiversity; prevention of erosion and sedimentation, carbon
dioxide sequestration).
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