A Green Revolution for Africa: Fulfilling the Borlaug Dream
Keynote speech delivered by
Dr Akinwumi A Adesina
Vice President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Feeding the Future
Borlaug Symposium 2010
July 13-14
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
It is such an honor and a great privilege for me to address this distinguished forum today, for it is indeed a very special gathering in honour of a very special man. President Carter, I was moved by your tribute to Dr. Borlaug. Listening to you talk, I was overcome again with the sadness of losing a man outstanding is so many ways – a famous scientist, a visionary, a friend, mentor and, of course, the father of the Green Revolution.
But I am also deeply saddened because of the missed opportunity to be able to tell Dr. Borlaug of the progress that we in Africa are making towards his dream of a uniquely Africa Green Revolution.
Africa was Dr. Borlaug’s “greatest worry” – especially sub-Saharan Africa where, and I quote Dr. Borlaug, “extreme poverty, poor soils, uncertain rainfall, increasing population pressure, changing ownership patterns for land and cattle, political and social turmoil, shortage of trained agriculturalists and weaknesses in research and technology delivery systems all the make the task of agricultural development more difficult.” When you look at that list of challenges, one would be inclined to say this task is impossible. But Dr. Borlaug realized that Africa has the potential to meet these challenges. He saw the possibilities for Africa when few outside of this continent could.
Because one of Dr. Borlaug’s greatest gifts was his ability to refuse to be constrained in his approach to problems by conventional wisdom. He was a true visionary as well as a man grounded in science and evidenced based thinking.
Dr. Borlaug sowed the seeds for change here in Africa. He was a great champion of this continent not just through the contributions of his scientific knowledge of agriculture but also through his unwavering belief that Africa could, with the right strategies and focused investment and commitment from governments here and abroad, feed itself.
You know, I met Dr. Borlaug many times. But one time in particular stands out for me because it greatly influenced my thinking. We were in New York at the Rockefeller Foundation planning for the 2006 land mark African Fertilizer Summit in which Dr. Borlaug actively participated and, walking back to the hotel after the meeting, he placed his hand on my shoulders and said “Akin, the promise of a Green Revolution in Africa is very much like soccer. If a team has never scored a goal, they will never believe they can win”.
So today, if you will indulge me, I would like to deliver these remarks not just to this very distinguished audience of decision makers and opinion leaders but to the spirit of Dr. Borlaug. Because we have scored some goals; we are starting to see that this is game we can win. It is a game we must win. We are starting to show success in agriculture and we know that local solutions are working. We have countries prospering because of their commitment to a strong agricultural sector.
After years of declining agricultural output, we are finally starting to see growth.
Between 1990 and 2005, the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day declined from 58% to 51%. The proportion of malnourished population declined from 31% in 1990 to 26% by 2005-2007. The problem is that the pace of change is way too slow. Africa still has 300 million people living on less than a dollar a day.
For far too long we have considered these 300 million people to be the drag on development. But what if we were to turn this problem on its head? What if, as Dr. Borlaug did so many times, we removed the constraints from our approach? What would happen if we looked at them as assets waiting to be unlocked and unleashed? These are 300 million who could produce food, generate incomes, employment and higher savings. To unlock their capacity we must be bold and put in place policies that will accelerate their access to agricultural technologies.
But the question is whether Africa has the technologies that can do this. The answer is a resounding yes. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in its book ‘Successes in African agriculture’ says Africa has developed technologies with transformative potential for turning around the fight against hunger.
The New Rice for Africa (NERICA) holds promise for millions of smallholder rice farmers and is already achieving impacts in a number of countries, such as Uganda, Gambia and Guinea. New cassava varieties and processing technologies hold potential for creating rural employment for millions of farmers.
In east and southern Africa, drought tolerant maize varieties that reduce the risk and vulnerabilities faced by farmers do exist. New varieties of sorghum now exist that can dramatically raise and stabilize yields. The African scientist who developed this, Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, comes from right here in Ethiopia and is here today [ask Gebisa to stand]. His work was recognized with the World Food Prize in 2009. We are enormously proud!
However, the challenge is that many of these excellent technologies are not being cultivated on large enough areas. While we can see the potential, as Dr. Borlaug once said “you cannot eat potential.” When the modern cereal varieties were released in South Asia the picture was different. Rice modern varieties rapidly spread from zero percent of the cultivated area in 1965 to almost 60% thirty years later. New wheat crop varieties spread rapidly from less than 2% of cultivated area in 1965 to 90% in 1995.
The green revolution in Asia worked because of three other critical factors: political will; supportive policies; and large scale financing. Governments put up massive funds to support the uptake of the new technologies, and provided price incentives for use of improved seeds, fertilizers and irrigation, extension, as well as roads. What has made the African situation different is that despite the new varieties that can make dramatic impacts we have lacked those three critical elements.
There is no financing or incentives to take these technologies to scale. Reeling under the constraints of poverty, Africans are unable to afford the high costs of inputs, especially seeds and fertilizers.
But African leaders are doing things differently now. With the strong leadership of the African Union, African leaders signed the Maputo Declaration for the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP). This bold move calls all countries to put up at least 10% of their national budgets for agriculture. Several countries are on their way to meeting the targets.
Our leaders are listening to the wisdom of Norman Borlaug!
Under the visionary leadership of the President of Malawi, President Mutharika, the Malawi government put together the three core elements: political will, supportive policies and financing. The results have been amazing. Malawi moved from being a net food importer, with 41% food deficit in 2005, to a 53% food surplus in 2007, became a net food exporter, exporting 400, 000 metric tons of maize. The transformation was not a miracle; it came from astute political leadership that rejected the arguments of pundits and instead embraced the need for support to farmers. Malawi went against the grain and today its stores are full of grain.
Here in Ethiopia, the focused efforts led by Dr. Borlaug’s work on higher yielding seeds and supported by President Carter and the His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi through Sasakawa Global 2000 have significantly raised food production.
President Carter understands: he is from Georgia and is also a farmer. US government provides billions of dollars of support for its farmers. The European Union spends over 47% of its total budget supporting farmers and consider that in the US and the EU, agriculture does not account for more than 2% of the GDP. Africa must do the same – and even more so, especially when agriculture accounts for over 40% of the GDP and about 70% of employment for the economically active population.
We are now seeing what can happen when governments end these policies of abandonment of African small farmers.
Indeed, a revolution is also underway now in rural markets, allowing millions of farmers to secure access to farm inputs. Rural farm input shops called agro-dealers are making farm inputs available to farmers on time, in small affordable sizes and at prices they can afford. So far, AGRA has supported the training and certification of 10,000 agro-dealers.
The results are encouraging. In 2009 alone, these agro-dealers sold $45 million worth of seeds and fertilizers in Malawi, Kenya and Tanzania. The distance farmers have to travel to find farm inputs is also being reduced. In western Kenya, this distance has been reduced from 10 kilometers to 3 kilometers. Agro-dealers are also buying back produce from farmers, providing critical market functions.
This revolution with agro-dealers now provides a unique opportunity for governments to use these rural businesses to supply subsidized farm inputs to farmers. Farmers can be provided with coupons for farm inputs redeemable from the agro-dealer shops. It is already working. In the southern highlands of Tanzania, this approach has enabled some 700,000 farmers to produce over 5 million tons of maize. Local solutions like this needs to be scaled up.
A revolution is also silently on its way in the hills of Rwanda. With bold political leadership driving government support to farmers, Rwanda has made major strides in food production in the past two years. Food production grew by 15% in 2007 and 16% in 2008, as the country embarked on a green revolution program. This wave of change must sweep across Africa.
African heads of state are listening and they are taking action. Progress is being made. Mali is now spending 11 percent of its total budget on agriculture, Burkina Faso 15 percent and Ethiopia 17 percent. Dr. Borlaug said “get up and do it!” Well, African leaders are doing it.
But you would think me naïve, if I did not address the enormous challenges we still face. Much more needs to be done. Yes, we are scoring goals but now we need to win games now.
Dr. Borlaug was right. What is needed is no less than a revolution - a revolution of ideas, of technologies, of policies, of market access and incentives – and new thinking on development financing to help Africa achieve its own Green Revolution. We need to modernise African agriculture using the best farmer knowledge and the best agricultural science and technology. But he was also quick to point out that knowledge and innovation had to get into the hands of the smallholder farmer to make a difference.
Dr. Borlaug left us with a big challenge but governments, a revitalized CGIAR, NGO’s and partnership organizations like my own, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, have taken up the challenge to catalyze change in Africa.
Without access to finance, farmers cannot take advantage of the green revolution technologies. Despite the fact that agriculture accounts for over 40% of the GDP in Africa, and employs about 70% of the population, less than 1% of the total lending by commercial banks go into agriculture.
This is misplaced priority.
Access to finance will allow farmers to use improved seeds, fertilizers and invest in irrigation and much needed farm storage facilities. Banks don’t lend to agriculture due to high risks. The way to unlock financing from banks is to reduce their risks of lending – especially to smallholder farmers. AGRA is spearheading a major effort to leverage commercial banks into agriculture in Africa. Together with partners, it has successfully used $16 million to leverage $170 million from commercial banks into agriculture in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda. And the impacts are evident. In Kenya, this allowed the Equity Bank to lend $14 million, reaching 30,000 smallholder farmers. In Tanzania, it allowed the National Microfinance Bank to make available $10 million for loans for agro-dealers
And when we do this, we will see a new African farmer emerging and thriving. Let me tell you about one of our new African farmers. Her name is Elizabethi Justin. She is 24 years old and she operates three agro-dealer shops supplying hundreds of remote farmers with affordable, high quality seeds and fertilizers.
She secured a low-interest loan from the National Microfinance Bank for eight million Tanzanian shillings. With access to capital, Elizabethi is able to fully realize her role as an entrepreneur, as a businesswoman. She paid back her entire loan in six months. Now she is opening a fourth shop. Although a Bank officer initially declined her loan because she was a woman, by now he must see the error in this thinking.
The loan Elizabethi received from the Bank is part of a new approach to innovative financing pioneered by AGRA. For the first time, it is getting affordable finance into the hands of smallholder farmers and small businesses that serve them. In Tanzania, we partnered with Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSDT) to post a $2.1 million loan guarantee fund. The fund insures National Microfinance Bank against initial losses and leveraged a US$10 million line of credit from the bank. It began in five pilot districts, and then spread to 23 districts. And it’s still growing.
In Kenya, a partnership involving AGRA, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Government of Kenya worked with the Equity Bank of Kenya to make $50 million in financing available to smallholder farmers and agro-dealers as loans. This programme and a similar one in Tanzania are innovative models to scale up and accelerate affordable financing for farmers across the continent.
AGRA and its partners are now establishing an Impact Investing Fund for African agriculture to help leverage $2.5 billion in financing from commercial banks into agriculture – especially for smallholder farmers. This will speed up the green revolution.
As farmers’ production increases, they will need better access to markets. Uganda is the second largest producer of bananas in the world, yet it ranks at the bottom of the list in terms of exports. Nigeria, the world’s largest producer of cassava, does not export the commodity at all.
Markets must also be developed to allow farmers to get better prices for what they produce. IFPRI estimates that the size of the market for food staples is $ US 50 billion per year and expected to double by 2015. But staple crop markets are poorly organized and farmers face high transaction costs and experience huge losses. Over 50% of what Africa produces is lost due to poor storage.
The rapid growth of cell phones in Africa has opened up opportunities for farmers to reach markets and get better prices. In Ethiopia, the emergence of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange now offers great opportunities for farmers to trade their produce and attract competitive prices, while meeting grades and standards. Development of warehouse receipt systems will further make it possible for farmers to reduce storage losses, stabilize prices, use their grains as collateral for credit, stimulating incentives for further uptake of new agricultural technologies.
Unless farmers can sell what they produce at a profit, poverty will persist. Within Africa, improving market access means lowering transaction costs: the costs of transport, storage and market information. And it means ending the barriers to trade among African countries and eliminating barriers to trade from Africa in developed countries.
We need to invest differently. This is precisely what Dr. Borlaug did in India. It worked; so let’s take those lessons and apply them to our own Green Revolution. We can’t afford to spread scarce resource across the continent anymore. We must concentrate on where we can be successful quickly so that we can start to improve the lives of millions of Africans right away.
And we must marshal critical masses of resources where they will make the biggest difference – in Africa’s high-potential breadbasket areas – areas with relatively good soil, rainfall, infrastructure and large numbers of smallholder farmers. By investing in its own breadbasket areas, African countries will be able to produce enough food to meet their food needs and export the surpluses.
But changes across the agricultural value chain will only come about within the framework of supportive policies: on national, regional and global scales. There is no farmer in the world that faces more challenges in access to finance, extension and subsidies for farm inputs than the African farmer. Years of policies of neglect have left African farmers locked in low level productivity and poverty traps. Africa must arise and change from ‘policies of abandonment’ to policies of comprehensive support for farmers.
I know I am being blunt here. I have to be. Dr. Borlaug understood the power of straight talk. When the Mexican wheat varieties were introduced to India there was rapid adoption by farmers. But lack of fertilizers was hampering productivity growth. He took this up with the Deputy Prime Minister Mehta of India. He berated the government for not investing in fertilizers and pushed for the government to have guaranteed prices, comparable to international prices, for farmers.
So heated was the debate that he knew he would be thrown out of the country. It worked: the government started a massive program of fertilizer production and imports which fuelled the green revolution. India averted famine.
With 300 million of our continent living on less than one dollar per day, we do not have the luxury of time. Dr. Borlaug had no patience with slow pace of things. In an autograph of his book he sent me he wrote ‘If we want peace for our children’s and grandchildren’s generation, it won’t be achieved on empty stomachs and hunger and misery”. He is right. The food riots that occurred during the global food crisis in 2008-2009 are a reminder of the harsh consequences of hunger.
And we also must address the challenges facing farmers with climate change. While Africa accounts for less than 3% of the global green house emissions, it must now bear the major brunt of its negative impacts. Frequent droughts and floods pose major challenges for farmers. Governments need to support farmers to adapt better to climate change. Prime Minister Meles carried the African voice on climate change to Copenhagen. What is needed today is less talk from the global community but bold actions.
Governments should support the dissemination of drought tolerant crops, expand micro-irrigation and make weather-indexed crop insurance more available and affordable to poor farmers. In Ethiopia, the Nyala Insurance Company is showing good results from its weather indexed insurance product for farmers. The insurance allowed farmers in Adi-Ha in Tigray region to insure themselves. In 2009, members of the Lome Adama Farmers Cooperative Union received 309,000 Birr – a lifeline. But this needs to reach millions of farmers. Governments support disaster payments, for catastrophic events. But a more effective approach would be to use some of the funds for disaster payments to front load support to allow farmers to afford weather-indexed crop insurance.
And Africa needs to accelerate the development of small and medium seed companies to commercialize the improved seeds to farmers. We must tap into the entrepreneurship of Africans. They will be there long after the multinational companies are gone. One such entrepreneur is Mamouna Coulibaly. She grew up in rural Mali and understood the needs of farmers well. Determined to help farmers get affordable high quality seeds she started her Faso-Kaba seed business in 2005 with modest savings. She sells seeds in small packs of 1, 2, 5 and 20 kilograms and at prices farmers can afford. Today she sells 300 tons of seed – 35-40% of all the private certified seed in Mali. She was awarded the Africa Business Woman of the Year by the African Business Awards.
Companies like hers can reach millions of farmers with improved seeds if governments privatize foundation seed production so they can produce foundation seeds themselves. In Borlaug’s words, they will be able to “take it to the farmers”.
We will also need to sustain the green revolution with better human capacity, especially in research and development, agricultural extension, market development, and policy development. African universities must play a lead role in the green revolution. New curriculums are needed to make training more relevant to the development challenges of Africa. AGRA has helped to establish the Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, based at the University of Kwazulu Natal. It is training African plant breeders to develop more adaptable crop varieties for their countries.
Two years ago, we added the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, for training in West Africa. To date some 80 PhDs have been trained and they are working in their home countries. These will be the ‘Gebisa Ejeta’s’ of tomorrow. AGRA is also supporting training of the next generation of policy experts to drive home-based and relevant agricultural policies. So far, over 130 new graduates have been produced.
And how do we resource this green revolution? IFPRI estimates that most countries would need to increase their agricultural spending by 20 to 24 percent per year to cut the poverty rate in half by 2015. A few countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda, could reach this goal with no more than a 10 percent annual increase. And although half the countries will require less than $500 million a year, total regional expenditure would need to reach $33 to $39 billion annually.
Africa cannot do it alone. Achieving such scale of investments will require significant continued financial commitments by the developed countries. They are responding. Just two months ago, the World Bank announced the creation of a multidonor trust fund to scale up financial support to address food security. The United States, Canada, Spain, the Republic of Korea and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation together will provide about $900 million. Let us hope that their aim to catalyze the $20 billion commitment made at the 2009 G8 Summit in L’Aquila is successful. But they have to remain committed to their promises and not be distracted by events like the global financial crisis of last year.
They must look at the successes in focused investment in Africa’s agricultural systems and realize that the smart allocation of resources is the way forward. Resources must be channeled to assist African countries in scaling up agricultural successes.
Our parliaments must lead Africa to total freedom through developing comprehensive policies and support systems for farmers. Parliaments must be the voice of the rural poor, of women farmers who produce most of Africa’s food, of all our people who desperately need support to break the shackles of hunger and poverty.
During India’s drive for a green revolution, Dr. Norman Borlaug once said: “If I was a parliamentarian, I would interrupt the session. Every time I get a chance, I will say ‘seeds, seeds, seeds’. Then I will sit down. I will get up again and say ‘fertilizers, fertilizers, fertilizers’. Then I will sit down. I will get up again and say ‘fair prices, fair prices, fair prices’.”
Parliaments all across Africa, in partnership with those of Europe, must rise in support of African farmers. You are the voices of our people – the leaders of our pathways for development. The time for Africa’s green revolution is now. Let us together unlock the power of 300 million Africans.
As I close, let me call to remembrance one last unique aspect of Dr. Borlaug which Africa desperately needs today - avoid being discouraged and take bold steps.
The problems we face demand bold steps and business as usual will not suffice. While pushing for the shuttle breeding program in Mexico, his unconventional approach of switching the crossing of varieties between lowlands and highlands, earned him the wrath of his boss at the time George Harrar. His professor who taught him in the university, Dr. H.K. Hays was adamant that his approach would not work. Norman would not budge. He said “Don’t try to discourage me. Don’t tell me what can’t be done. Tell me what needs to be done – and let me do it.”
Today, as Africa grapples with how to feed its people, we cannot be discouraged. We must do all it takes to solve this. We may be told we cannot do it, but we do not believe any of that. Africa must feed itself.
It was Nelson Mandela who said “there is no such thing as part freedom”. Let us resolve to march on to full freedom, when our peoples will be free from hunger and poverty. 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.
Then you will almost hear Dr. Borlaug’s voice ringing once again, joined with that of Martin Luther King, “free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty Africa is fed at last”!
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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.