The Global Child Nutrition Forum: Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security
June 1, 2010 | Accra, Ghana
A new green revolution: challenges and opportunities in linking smallholder farmers
Thank you for inviting me to address this prestigious forum on Global Child Nutrition. The topics we are tackling today are issues I have been involved with for most of my life – first as a hungry child in primary school, a frontline extension worker and farmer in Cameroon, then as deputy executive director of the World Food Program, working side by side with a great friend of this forum for several years and now as President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Agriculture, food, children and education – there are many linkages.
I have seen firsthand how some students would be asleep by noon – young children who had only one meal a day and that was usually in the evening. And yet we would somehow expect them to learn to write and to add when precious energy was spent on just walking to school and maybe trying to stay awake.
I was also always struck by the unfairness and of a classroom made up primarily of boys. Where were the girls? Well, you know where they were – at home. Missing out on both an education and a nourishing meal.
School feeding programs are one of the best social and economic investment programs in the world. I do not think I need to spend too much time telling this audience how vital these programs are to almost every country in the world.
And nowhere are they more important than in Sub Saharan Africa. Because, right now, Africa cannot feed its children. Tragically, Africa cannot feed itself. And many African children are too hungry to go to school or benefit from being in class. We must and can change that situation.
Agriculture is Africa’s lifeline. It is the roadmap for moving tens of millions of Africans out of poverty. Three quarters of our people farm and roughly 40 per cent of our GDP comes from agriculture. Small holder farmers grow most of the continent’s food. But they do so with minimal resources: poor seeds and soil and little government support.
While our continent’s agriculture is in a daunting state of disrepair, I am happy to say progress is being made. The agricultural system can not only be fixed it can become a model of efficiency, high productivity and sustainability.
Millions of smallholder farmers are poised to deliver long-term solutions to chronic hunger and poverty across the region. They have the land, their energy, the experience and the will to grow the food that Africa needs to end the undernourishment that affects more than one in three Africans. To realize that potential, we must catalyze change across the agricultural system that enables smallholder farmers to significantly boost their yields and income.
This is the vision of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. We can have a food secure and prosperous Africa and we can do this through rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers – the majority of whom are women. This can be done by investing in smallholder farmers, through integrated programs in the areas of seeds, soils, market access, policy and affordable credit. Together, these innovations across the entire value chain will trigger sustainable change especially if we focus on the breadbasket areas of our countries. There is no one big solution but rather many small interventions identified and implemented by working on the ground with farmers.
With help from governments and many partners from both the public and private sector, we are making inroads in all these areas.
Since 2006, AGRA’s work in 14 African countries has led to some tangible results in alleviating food insecurity. We have trained 20 African plant breeders at the Ph.D level and some 60 more are in training. In addition, 50 more African scientists will have graduated with MSc degrees in plant breeding by the end of this year; 120 more are expected to graduate with the next three years. . Each of these scientists is working to improve staple food crops grown by farmers in their countries. With AGRA’s support, over 100 new crop varieties have been released and over 14000 MT of improved seeds made available to farmers, thus increasing farmer productivity potential and ability to cope with climate change.
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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.