Converging Streams: Africa’s Green Revolution and the African Media

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
Vice President (Policy & Partnerships)
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa

Key Note Address Delivered at the Africa Media Leaders Forum, 6 November 2009, Lagos, Nigeria

I would like to begin with a special thank you to the African Media Leaders Forum and All Africa for hosting the second annual meeting of the Forum, and for inviting me to address this distinguished audience.  

I bring you greetings from Mr. Kofi Annan, Chairman of AGRA, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.  He wholeheartedly endorses your efforts to build Africa’s independent mass media and to put it at the heart of Africa’s development process. Nowhere is the need for this more urgent than in the agricultural sector, which accounts for about 80% of all employment, but whose performance has historically left much to be desired.

Many of us will remember Birhan Woldu, the three-year-old Ethiopian child caught up in the catastrophic drought and famine of 1984.  That year, her picture was beamed around the world, as she lay more dead than alive in her father’s arms. Birhan became the poster child for famine in Africa.  It galvanized Live Aid and spurred an outpouring of donations from around the world to feed Africa’s children. 

It had another effect as well.  It further entrenched famine as the journalistic lens that frames Africa. Seen through this lens, African agriculture is about poverty, food aid, and endless need. Africa can’t feed itself.  Nothing works here. It is a story of failure, repeated again and again.

But a similar pessimistic view of agriculture pervaded Asia in the 1960s, with pictures of famine and hunger. So bad was the situation that many gave up on Asia as a basket case that would never be able to feed itself. What the pessimists did not foresee was the power of science to change the situation. As high yielding varieties of rice and wheat spread through Asia – from Philippines to India and Pakistan - over a billion people were saved from hunger and starvation. Asia embarked on a massive economic transformation built on the success of its farmers. This was a green revolution.

Africa has waited too long to turn the tide of low food production that has left over 200 million people in hunger and over a third of its children malnourished. To turn this around requires a major transformation of agriculture. It requires a green revolution, but one that is specific to the needs of Africa. One that dramatically raises the yields of its staple food crops, conserves biodiversity, protects the environment and lifts millions out of poverty.

Let me be clear from the onset: while many challenges remain, good news is coming out of African agriculture. Change is underway—on many fronts.  Let me begin with some spectacularly good news: According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, food production in sub-Saharan Africa grew in 2008 for the first year in decades.  It rose 3.5 percent, faster than Africa’s population growth of 2 percent.

This breakthrough reflects the emergence of a uniquely African Green Revolution! The journey to feed Africa has begun well. And AGRA and our partners are part of it.

AGRA and Africa’s Emerging Green Revolution

AGRA is an African-led initiative which works in African countries to improve the productivity and sustainability of smallholder farmers, most of whom are women. Since its establishment in 2006, with initial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation – AGRA quickly went to work to help unlock the potential of African agriculture. Our approach is pragmatic. It combines local knowledge, science and the extensive capacity of Africans themselves: in crop breeding, soil health, development of markets and supportive policies.  In all of these areas, African leadership is stepping forward and shaping the development agenda.   

African scientists are among those leading the way.  Two Africans have recently won the World Food Prize. Just last month, Ethiopian scientist Gebisa Ejeta, who previously worked at AGRA, became the World Food Prize Laureate. Ejeta was honored for his remarkable work on developing high-yielding and weed-resistant varieties of sorghum, a critical crop for the poor.  His drought-tolerant sorghums produce yields four-to-five times higher than existing varieties.  During a time of climate change and increasing drought, such innovations are both life saving and money-making for smallholder farmers.

Gebisa Ejeta’s work represents the new face of African agriculture.

In 2004, Monty Jones, who serves on the Board of AGRA, was honored for his work on developing the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) which dramatically increases the yields of rice under rain-fed conditions.

NERICA rice varieties have dramatically increased the rice harvest in countries like Guinea and Nigeria.  The demand for rice in sub-Saharan Africa is double the rate of population growth and consumption is growing faster than that of any other major food staple.  In Uganda, NERICA helped to dramatically cut rice imports, saving roughly US $30 million.

Ejeta and Jones, like many other African scientists around the continent, are on the cutting edge of solving Africa’s food crisis.

Ugandan farmer Hadji Wanonda knows the difference a variety can make.  Growing “upland” NERICA varieties on his one-acre plot of land, he can earn up to US$800 in three months--a huge jump in his income. He now employs men and women in his community to help out with farm work, further boosting the rural economy.

Hadji is the new face of African agriculture.

Improved varieties of a wide number of African crops, from climbing beans to drought-tolerant maize, are helping to feed the continent.  New disease-resistant varieties of cassava, a staple food for 200 million Africans, increase farmers’ average yield by 40 percent.  Mama Neme, a farmer in Malawi is one of them.  Because of improved cassava, she now has enough food to feed her family of eight children.

Mama Neme is the new face of African agriculture.

Complementing the new seeds are large-scale efforts to improve soil health, which is poor and declining across three-quarters of our farm land. 

In the sandy soils of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, a new technique of applying fertilizers, called Micro-dosing, is transforming once arid lands into lush green fields. Using coca-cola bottle caps, farmers apply small quantities of fertilizers to their millet and sorghum. Yields have increased dramatically, as much as 130-140 percent and farmers are spending a lot less on fertilizers, while improving the environment. Over 300,000 farmers are now using the technique, with support from AGRA.

Africa is feeding itself – and the stories need to be told!

One of these stories is that of Dinnah Kapiza, an agro-dealer in Malawi. Kapiza turned her used clothing store into a full-line farming supply store.  She employs six young people, including a young woman, orphaned by AIDS, who supports her three younger sisters and attends university.  Kapiza herself farms, and counsels farmers on everything from soil health and tree planting, to using condoms to prevent AIDS.  Her shop serves over 600 farmers who come from up to 15 kilometers away, on bicycle and foot, to buy improved seeds, fertilizers and crop protection products. 

With such basic inputs, Malawi’s agro-dealers and farmers are changing their fortunes.  Indeed, Kapiza has been part of an agricultural revolution in Malawi - one which transformed the country from a net importer to a net exporter of maize, and allowed it to attain 7 percent annual economic growth.
 
Kapiza is not alone. Women and men like her are doing the greatest business of all – getting appropriate technologies to farmers on the ground.  Through the work of AGRA and our grantees, there are now 5,000 agro-dealers in 11 countries, serving hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers.  In Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi, these small rural businesses sold more than US$45 million worth of seeds, fertilizers and other farm inputs.

Now this is a revolution in agriculture!

But to really make smallholder farming a business, farmers need access to affordable finance. Until now, banks have avoided lending to smallholders, considering them too risky. AGRA is helping to change this.  In the last year alone, AGRA has helped to unlock $160 million in affordable financing for smallholder-based agriculture. Credit guarantees, put up by AGRA and our partners, leverage up to ten times their amount in low-interest loans.  Standard Bank, Africa’s largest, has dedicated US$100 million to the program; Kenya’s largest bank, Equity, has put in US$50 million.  We will not stop here, however.  We intend to mobilize US$4 billion in affordable loans for Africa’s smallholder farmers and the businesses that serve them.  I can see many bankers here today. You will be our partners for the future.

Progress isn’t all in the fields.  It is also found in mobile phone networks that connect farmers to market information; agricultural commodity exchanges that are rapidly showing successes in Kenya, Malawi and Ethiopia; and in the emergence of locally-owned African seed companies that are supplying high quality seeds at lower costs to farmers.

For Africa’s Green Revolution to take hold, all of these innovations and developments must be focused on serving smallholder farmers – the life line to food security on the continent.

While farmers in developed nations have long benefited from supportive government policies and massive amounts of subsidies, African farmers must queue for food aid. This is the flip side of a famine, and it is based on decades of government neglect. 

But a new generation of African leaders is learning from these experiences.  Their path-breaking approach is helping to shape a new African Consensus on agricultural policy: comprehensive support for farmers.

Policies of comprehensive support, aimed at helping resource poor farmers obtain quality seed and fertilizers have helped transform Malawi from a net importer to a net exporter of maize for four years running.
 
This is not an isolated success. A similar approach is transforming farms across Tanzania.  Last year, 700,000 smallholder farmers in the Southern Highlands produced five million metric tons of maize, more than any other region of the country. The World Bank took note, and will provide some $160 million to scale up the government’s input support program. Such is the power of locally directed change. 

In Rwanda, policies which increased farmers’ access to quality seed and fertilizers boosted food production by 15% in 2007 and by another 16% in 2008. The government now purchases fertilizer in bulk, and auctions it to private companies, which in turn distribute it to smallholder farmers.  These efforts have improved Rwanda’s food security, even as 20 million people in neighboring countries must depend on food aid.

Things are working and the African media needs to positively project these successes, while realizing that there are no “one-size-fits all” policies for promoting smallholder agriculture.

While there are heavy demands on public expenditures, one trade off we cannot afford is to leave our farmers with no support. Africa cannot become the world’s largest museum of poverty. And we cannot sustain democratic gains on empty stomachs.
 
As governments develop plans to guide agricultural renewal they must also beware of the foreign rush for Africa’s land.  The continent does not need big absentee landlords. And Africa’s lands are not up for garage sales. Smallholder farmers are Africa’s rightful landlords, and African governments need to invest in their own farmers and in their own high-potential breadbasket areas. As it does, it will feed itself and help feed the world.  

Let us get optimistic about African agriculture. There is no greater ally for the African farmer than the media. But what stories will you write? It should no longer be those of Birhan Woldu and the faces of famine that were beamed across the world. Much has changed since then. It should now be about the new faces of African agriculture that I have shared with you today.

Let us join hands to make agriculture a source of wealth that will transform the future for millions of Africa’s children. Let us together hasten the coming of the day when our fields are filled with plenty; when our barns overflow; when our children dance in our fields; and when the uniquely African green revolution is achieved.

Thank you very much.

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About the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
AGRA is a dynamic partnership working across the African continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. AGRA programmes develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment. AGRA advocates for policies that support its work across all key aspects of the African agricultural value chain ­from seeds, soil health and water to markets and agricultural education.

AGRA's Board of Directors is chaired by Kofi A Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Dr Namanga Ngongi, former Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme, is AGRA's president. With support from The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK's Department for International Development and other donors, AGRA works across sub-Saharan Africa and maintains offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and Accra, Ghana.