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Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa

Frequently Asked Questions



What is the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)?
We are an Africa-based and African-led partnership with an ambitious yet achievable vision: helping millions lift themselves out of poverty and hunger by dramatically increasing the productivity of hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and improving their livelihoods.

AGRA is an inclusive undertaking engaging African organisations of farmers, agro-dealers, scientists, private sector firms, national leaders and institutions, and the broader civil society. AGRA programmes and partnerships are comprehensive: they address challenges along the full agricultural value chain: from seeds, soils and water to markets, agricultural expertise, and finance. Our approach is also sustainable in the sense that it is both pro-poor and pro-environment. We seek to foster agricultural development for small-scale farmers that is economically and environmentally sustainable.



Who founded AGRA?
AGRA was founded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on September 12, 2006. The Rockefeller Foundation has a long history of working with agricultural organisations in Africa, including organisations of farmers and agricultural scientists. It is the knowledge and experience of these African collaborations, and the ability to learn from African farmers across the continent, that truly lays the foundation for AGRA.



Who funds AGRA and how much money will be needed to achieve your goals?
Ultimately, a project of this scale and scope is going to require an investment of billions of dollars. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are committed to investing hundreds of millions of dollars, but we recognise that much more is needed.

We will seek further funding and companion initiatives both within Africa and globally. We have every reason to believe that significant support will come from African national governments, financial institutions, and companies. We are equally confident of support from the private and public sectors and foundations in developed countries, as well as from major multilateral and bilateral organisations.

We are confident that when governments, international organisations, NGOs and other donors who share our goals see the immediate and practical returns that come from investments in Africa’s small-scale farmers, they will make significant contributions to this effort. What donors want to see now is that there is a strategy in place that will address all aspects of Africa’s agricultural challenges—including those related to farm inputs, marketing issues, sustainable approaches to farming, biodiversity on and off the farm, and agriculture policies—and then they will be eager to become active in AGRA.



Who are the members of AGRA?
AGRA is a young organisation, and we are actively building AGRA partnerships. Through issuing a number of initial grants, we have established partnerships with major African institutions, including several Ministries of Agriculture, as well as prominent African plant breeders, soil health experts, and leaders of African agriculture extension programmes.

In addition, we will work in close partnership with the Africa Union and its New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and with other African development institutions (national and regional) to achieve our goals. AGRA strongly endorses the framework set out by NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which aims for a sustained 6 percent annual growth in agricultural production by 2015.



How will AGRA be governed?
Our approach is open and participatory—after all, this is the approach of most African farmers and rural farming communities to the challenges they face everyday. Africans have a long history in Africa of collective work and community action.

In addition, AGRA will have an Advisory Board of Partners—partners who are committed to working together to meet AGRA’s goals. The Board will provide a means of sharing experiences, identifying opportunities, and mobilising the will and resources to meet common objectives. AGRA’s staff will be initially based in an office in Nairobi. We will soon open a West Africa regional office in Accra, Ghana. Our organisation and bylaws will be transparent and democratic.

Also, we will constantly ask ourselves and small farmers: is our work being effective for small-scale African farmers—and if not, why not? We are committed to achieving high impacts. We are driven by a sense of urgency and have already set up a system for consistent and objective monitoring and evaluation.



Who leads AGRA?
The Chairman of the Board of AGRA is former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan of Ghana. Five of the seven AGRA Board members are African leaders and experts, and more will be joining the board. Furthermore, African institutions and individuals are at the core of our work and partnerships.

AGRA is a direct response to the political will and vision coming out of Africa. For several years now, many African presidents in addition to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan have been calling for a uniquely African effort to revive the small-scale farms that are at the heart of African agriculture, and the African Union has issued a Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme that charts a path to agricultural development.

We will be collaborating with all sectors in Africa and around the world, but we will first and foremost be listening to and learning from the African small-scale farmer. Everyone involved in AGRA—including the two foundations—believes very strongly that it must be an African-led and African-inspired campaign if it is to succeed. We already have strong African partnerships, including with NEPAD, and others area being built. This will be an African-owned endeavor, as it must be. We are confident the two foundations recognise and support this.



What are AGRA’s ultimate goals?
We want to build a prosperous agricultural system, one that generates significant opportunities for Africa’s small-scale farmers—who are the poorest of the world’s poor—and spur rapid rural economic growth.

Our goal is that within 10 to 20 years, farmers will double or even triple their yields. That, in turn, will generate additional income because they will be able to sell their surpluses at profitable prices in local, regional and international markets. Also, most African small-scale farms involve a mix of livestock and crops, and we believe there are opportunities to make these systems more complimentary. Improvements in both crop and livestock operations will give farmers expanded incomes to invest as they see fit, including in health, education, housing and other needs for themselves and their families. Ultimately, it will help end the hunger and poverty of tens of millions of farmers and their families across Africa.

Achieving this goal will require tremendous development in many related areas: in market development; access to credit, transport and distribution systems; natural resource conservation; building the brain trust of African scientists; empowering women farmers; and developing financing institutions. We believe that these are achievable goals.



How will AGRA measure its progress?
AGRA will vigorously monitor and evaluate its efforts, so that we’ll know what’s working. If a strategy does not seem to be yielding progress, we’ll adjust our course until we see the change we’re after. We’ll be working in many areas, from improving soil quality to training the next generation of African agronomists. We expect measurable progress in each of these areas.

Eventually, progress will be measured by the number of new improved crop varieties available to small-scale farmers, by weighing the harvests as they come in from the field, by testing the soils on the farm, and by looking at quantum leaps in the improvement in the lives and livelihoods of farmers across Africa



What role will the private sector play in AGRA programmes?
AGRA is dedicated to charting a path to prosperity that relies on the resources and resourcefulness of Africans, and works with Africa’s small-scale farmers to end extreme poverty and hunger.

To accomplish this, we believe that African farmers need and deserve the same choice of modern agricultural tools as do farmers elsewhere, and we believe the private sector has an important role to play. We will develop and strengthen Africa’s small and medium-scale seed companies to develop and sell appropriate seeds to farmers. We will develop rural agro-dealers (small rural shops, mainly owned by women) that can get technologies to all parts of rural Africa. We will work with local food processors that can add value to products. We will work with local micro-finance institutions. We will support and strengthen farmers’ associations to run profitable businesses that serve their interests. We will grow African businesses to serve the needs of Africa’s small-scale farmers, while working in partnership with other multinational companies that can help advance this vision. We welcome as partners companies that can provide relevant, affordable and accessible innovations and services for small-scale farmers.

Almost three-quarters of Africa’s land area is being farmed without the use of highly productive crop varieties, adequate soil nutrients, or water resources. That would be clearly unacceptable almost anywhere else in the world. At the same time, per capita agricultural production is declining and poverty and child malnutrition are getting worse. We must reverse these trends using sustainable strategies.



Why is your focus on small-scale farmers and how will you ensure equity?
Our approach is based on the reality that you will get increases in food production in Africa only by improving agriculture on small-scale farms, not supplanting them with industrial farming. Achieving equity and opportunity for Africa’s poorest farmers is AGRA’s guiding principle.

The first Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It more than doubled food production. At the same time, in some areas, it initially benefited farmers with larger farms and ready access to irrigation.

The situation is different in Africa. Small-scale farms provide 70 percent to 80 percent of African agricultural production. These farmers face an array of challenges, and there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to revitalising small-scale farming. We believe in pursuing an array of solutions targeted at the specific problems farmers are facing. These will vary based on the crops grown, soil conditions, water availability, social and economic structures, and a host of other factors. In other words, the needs of a farmer growing upland rice in Ghana will not be the same as that of a farmer growing cassava in Malawi.

Great flexibility and a diversity of approaches and options will be needed. We will work for growth, equity and environmental sustainability. We must ensure equitable impacts in high-potential areas as well as under-served low-potential areas.



How does AGRA approach issues of land tenure and land distribution?
Access to land and security of land tenure are important to stimulate investment by small-scale farmers in technologies, farm inputs and off-farm outputs. This is especially true for investments in soil fertility improvements that take time to generate benefits. Where there is equitable access to land, the benefits of technological change are more broadly shared by the poor. Access to land is especially important for women who form the majority of farmers in Africa. We will work with the African development organisations (the Africa Union, NEPAD and the UN Economic Commission for Africa) to further advocate for equitable land access and security of land tenure for farmers.



How will AGRA programmes protect the environment?
Nutrient run-off through misuse of fertiliser and depletion of water sources are two problems that can be associated with high-production farming. To avoid these problems, we will use agro-ecologically sound approaches. The African effort to revitalise our farms will restore Africa’s soil health and get higher yields for each drop of water through integrated soil fertility management. We will promote more intensive use of organic matter wherever possible and efficient use of fertilisers. Replenishing depleted soils will save forests and savannahs from destruction and protect wildlife habitats.

While other areas of the world, including Asia, have extensive irrigation, less than 5 percent of Africa’s land is irrigated. Small-scale African farmers need efficient, affordable and reliable water management practices to grow their crops. Such “micro-irrigation techniques” can include water harvesting; human-powered treadle pumps or solar-powered “low drip” agriculture.

Africa’s approach can be and must be both pro-poor and pro-environment. Today, too often, resource-poor farmers end up mining the soil of nutrients, which causes serious erosion, and leads to clearing yet more land for cultivation. This contributes to deforestation and desertification, two of Africa’s biggest environmental problems. For example, the rate of deforestation in Africa is 200 percent of the global average. That is not a sustainable way to produce food.

To further ensure that AGRA programmes benefit, and do not harm the environment, AGRA has established a monitoring and evaluations systems to assess our performance. Environmental sustainability will be a key measure of success.



How will AGRA encourage farm biodiversity in Africa?
The crop diversity in Africa is huge and Africans consume a wide range of food crops. But this diversity is threatened. We will support the conservation of crop diversity in farmers’ fields and in seed collections. By contributing to the conservation of natural landscapes through limiting the expansion of agricultural land, we will also be conserving the wild relatives of African crops. In the fields, we will rely on farmers’ local knowledge, listen to their needs, understand and respect their preferences. We will promote the conservation of local crop varieties and use them to develop higher yielding varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases. We will promote farmers’ rights to preserve and exchange their seeds. We will develop improved varieties for the full range of Africa’s important staple food crops, match them to agro-ecological niches and develop soil fertility interventions that take into consideration the diversity of Africa’s soils, rainfall patterns and cropping systems.

Today, we need varied practical approaches across Africa’s agro-ecological zones.



Does AGRA plan to introduce genetically engineered crops?
Introduction of genetically engineered crops is not part of AGRA strategy at this time. We are supporting the development of improved seeds for small-scale farmers using conventional breeding. And we will work to make sure those seeds become available. We expect this to result in a significant improvement in crop yields, income and food security.

New varieties are constantly needed that grow well in highly diverse and changing environments. Crops are needed to resist different pests and diseases and to thrive in areas with different rainfall patterns, increasingly erratic climates, and different soil properties. We aim to help African scientists finally be able to focus on the “orphan crops” of Africa through conventional breeding efforts. We are looking for impact in the near term, and conventional breeding is best suited to achieve this goal.

Conventional breeding is our starting point. At the same time, AGRA will not shy away from considering the potential of biotechnology in reducing hunger and poverty and we do not preclude future support for genetic engineering as an approach to crop variety improvement when it is the most appropriate tool to address an important need of small-scale farmers and when it is consistent with government policy.

Over the long term, it is the responsibility of African governments, in partnership with their citizens, to decide which technologies to use and how to use them in order to produce the best crop yields possible, while paying particular attention to issues of bio-safety, genetic diversity, human health and the environment. Read more.



How will AGRA address trade issues that affect African farmers?
Our focus is on the small-scale African farmer and works outward from there. Until African farm families have the means to increase productivity, to feed themselves and their communities, African countries will be forced to rely on food imports and food aid.

There are harmful trade practices and other policies that work against development in Africa, and phasing them out is important. We will advocate and work with other partners for fairer global trade and domestic agricultural support policies that open up profitable market opportunities for African farmers.

Expanding intra-regional trade within Africa is a key to increasing agricultural productivity. Intra-regional trade is hindered by high tariffs and other barriers within Africa itself. We will work with regional economic communities in Africa to remove barriers to intra-regional trade. We will also work with national governments in Africa to support policies that promote fair prices for farmers and consumers, for farm inputs and farm produce and in global trade.

But to best position African farmers to benefit from policy reforms, particularly those that increase access to global agricultural markets, we must first boost farm production through a comprehensive set of initiatives that address everything from seeds, soil, and water, to markets, finance and infrastructure.



How has AGRA included small-scale farmers in its planning process?
AGRA staff consults routinely and extensively with farmers in the field and farmer associations, as well as with African plant breeders, small entrepreneurs seeking to get farmers the resources they need, African scientists, civil society organisations, and government leaders of African countries. For example all plant breeders working with AGRA consult with small farmers to obtain their perspectives on seed types in terms of taste and traits important for usage as these farmers breed new crop varieties. This type of consultation is at the core of our work, and will become both more formal and more extensive.

In the coming months, AGRA leaders will be meeting with groups of farmers in east, west, central and southern Africa. At its core, AGRA is about the small-scale farmer, so our leadership will be traveling throughout the continent to see the best ideas first-hand and to hear ideas for going beyond incremental change to a results-driven, uniquely African Green Revolution.

We are actively organising discussions with farmers, civil society, and other actors to discuss challenges and find solutions. Our aim is to work side-by-side with small-scale farmers who are the key players in boosting agricultural productivity. We look forward to having organisations of small-scale farmers represented on the Board of AGRA and on other AGRA entities.



What makes this approach different from past development plans for Africa?
The work of AGRA is comprehensive—across the agricultural value chain—and our focus is squarely on small-scale farmers. Our plans are based on partnerships with farmers and on the best agricultural and economic science in Africa and the world. AGRA is inspired by the call of African leaders for a uniquely African agricultural revival and by the commitment of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development to increase agricultural production by 6 percent a year by 2015.

We believe tools and technologies are available and there is great promise for new technologies that will boost agricultural productivity.

Finally, AGRA works also on the policy side to advocate for and support government and international policy that is both pro-poor and also ecologically sound and sustainable.

The time is right for Africa, and AGRA is the right partnership to lead us forward. We believe that there is a rare alignment of interests both inside and outside of Africa in understanding that agriculture is the foundation of fighting poverty on the continent. And in the last 10 years, we have seen many successful efforts in different parts of Africa to improve production on small farms and provide new income opportunities for small farmers, from the introduction of a high yielding rice variety in West Africa to maize in Ghana. The challenge is to scale up those successes and offer them to all who would benefit. We are now witnessing the beginnings of the financial, political, and technical commitment to do just that.



Farmers grew crops for thousands of years without improved seeds and fertilisers. Why are they needed now?
Only by producing more food and more nutritious food will Africa be able to overcome poverty and hunger. The population of Africa is growing rapidly, while the land available for farming is of increasingly marginal quality. Africa’s population growth of 3 percent a year has outstripped the 2 percent annual growth of food production in Africa. To overcome poverty and hunger, Africa’s small-scale farmers need to sustainably increase agricultural productivity.

In earlier times, the population in Africa—and globally—was small enough that farmers could work the land for a few years and then allow it to have a fallow period of 10-20 years to restore soil fertility while they shifted production to another plot of land. Today, agricultural land available to most farmers is too limited for effective use of fallows, and expansion of agriculture often comes at the cost of sacrificing forests and other vital habitat areas.

Like the “smart growth” policies of environmentally conscious city planners, we need to grow more on existing lands, not expand onto new lands while continuing to produce a fraction of the amount possible per hectare. The wise and efficient use of modern tools of agriculture, combined with the best farming practices, can dramatically boost agricultural production for small-scale farmers and protect the environment.



Why is African agricultural production failing to keep pace with population growth?
The population of Africa is increasing rapidly, having more than tripled between 1950 and 1995. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the population is projected to grow from 600 million in 2000 to nearly a billion by 2020. Meanwhile, during the last 15 years, investment in agricultural development in Africa has been dropping. This is only recently changing. Poverty, limited access to appropriate technologies, poor infrastructure, high transport costs, limited irrigation, poorly functioning input and output markets, lack of access to finance and weak policy support for small-scale farmers are the backdrop to today’s challenges. To this, add a shortage of university-trained agricultural experts and inadequately funded and under-staffed agricultural extension services. All this is what we have to change. African leaders are already leading the way in solving these problems.

The challenges facing African farmers are further compounded by African environments: the vagaries of erratic rainfall; encroaching desertification; ancient and depleted soils; and abundant pests and diseases of tropical climates.

Until Africa is able to overcome its crisis in food production, it will be unable to alleviate the hunger that afflicts one-third of all African people.



Why not just give away the seed, fertiliser and other farm inputs that are needed?
Our goal is sustainable agriculture and sustainable growth. This requires the development of markets—for both agricultural inputs such as seed and fertiliser and for farm products. In most African countries, less than one-third of the food produced enters into commercial marketing channels beyond the local area. Conversely, it is often impossible for small-scale farmers to obtain reasonably priced farm inputs. But simply giving seed or fertiliser away would do nothing to develop the market.

But we also recognise that the majority of farmers are poor. They will need to be supported just like other farmers are supported across the world. The challenge is how to do this in ways that are efficient, effective and sustainable. The key is to use “smart subsidies” (those that support the poor while building private markets) and strengthen private-sector markets. Also needed are supportive investments in research, infrastructure and other essential public goods. Markets and public policy support should not be mutually exclusive; they should be complementary.