This volume explores the usefulness of the Asian model of agricultural development for Africa, where, even before the recent world food crisis, half the population lived on less than on dollar a day, and a staggering one in three people and one third of all children were undernourished. Africa has abundant natural resources; agriculture provides most of its jobs, a third of national income and a larger portion of total export earnings. However the levels of land and labor productivity rank among the worst in the world. The book explains Africa’s productivity gap and proposes ways to close it, by examining recent experience in Africa and by drawing on lessons from Asia.
This volume examines the dominant neoliberal agenda for agricultural development and hunger alleviation in Africa. The text reviews the history of African agricultural and food security policy in the post-colonial period, across a range of geographical contexts, in order to contextualise the productionist approach embedded in the much heralded New Green Revolution for Africa. This strategy, supported by a range of international agencies, promotes the use of hybrid seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides to boost crop production. This approach is underpinned by a new and unprecedented level of public–private partnerships as donors actively work to promote the private sector and build links between African farmers, input suppliers, agro-dealers, agro-processors, and retailers. On the consumer end, increased supermarket penetration into poorer neighbourhoods is proffered as a solution to urban food insecurity. The chapters in this volume complicate understandings of this new approach and raise serious questions about its effectiveness as a strategy for increasing food production and alleviating poverty across the continent. This book is based on a special issue of African Geographical Review.
As development donors invest hundreds of millions of dollars into improved crops designed to alleviate poverty and hunger, Africa has emerged as the final frontier in the global debate over agricultural biotechnology. The first data-driven assessment of the ecological, social, and political factors that shape our understanding of genetic modification, Africa's Gene Revolution surveys twenty years of efforts to use genomics-based breeding to enhance yields and livelihoods for African farmers. Matthew Schnurr considers the full range of biotechnologies currently in commercial use and those in development - including hybrids, marker-assisted breeding, tissue culture, and genetic engineering. Drawing on interviews with biotechnology experts alongside research conducted with more than two hundred farmers across eastern, western, and southern Africa, Schnurr reveals a profound incongruity between the optimistic rhetoric that accompanies genetic modification technology and the realities of the smallholder farmers who are its intended beneficiaries. Through the lens of political ecology, this book demonstrates that the current emphasis on improved seeds discounts the geographic, social, ecological, and economic contexts in which the producers of these crops operate. Bringing the voices of farmers to the foreground of this polarizing debate, Africa's Gene Revolution contends that meaningful change will come from a reconfiguration not only of the plant's genome, but of the entire agricultural system.
"A powerful polemic against agricultural technology." —Nature A major new book that shows the world already has the tools to feed itself, without expanding industrial agriculture or adopting genetically modified seeds, from the Small Planet Institute expert Few challenges are more daunting than feeding a global population projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050—at a time when climate change is making it increasingly difficult to successfully grow crops. In response, corporate and philanthropic leaders have called for major investments in industrial agriculture, including genetically modified seed technologies. Reporting from Africa, Mexico, India, and the United States, Timothy A. Wise's Eating Tomorrow discovers how in country after country agribusiness and its well-heeled philanthropic promoters have hijacked food policies to feed corporate interests. Most of the world, Wise reveals, is fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, people with few resources and simple tools but a keen understanding of what and how to grow food. These same farmers—who already grow more than 70 percent of the food eaten in developing countries—can show the way forward as the world warms and population increases. Wise takes readers to remote villages to see how farmers are rebuilding soils with ecologically sound practices and nourishing a diversity of native crops without chemicals or imported seeds. They are growing more and healthier food; in the process, they are not just victims in the climate drama but protagonists who have much to teach us all.
Africa can achieve self sufficiency in food production through adoption of innovations in the agriculture sector. Numerous soil fertility and crop production technologies have been generated through research, however, wide adoption has been low. African farmers need better technologies, more sustainable practices, and fertilizers to improve and sustain their crop productivity and to prevent further degradation of agricultural lands. The agricultural sector also needs to be supported by functional institutions and policies that will be able to respond to emerging challenges of globalization and climate change.
Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.
Genetically modified crops have become a key element of development strategies across the Global South, despite remaining deeply controversial. Proponents hail them as an example of 'pro-poor' innovation, while critics regard them as a threat to food sovereignty and the environment. The promotion of biotechnology is an integral part of 'new Green Revolution for Africa' interventions and is also intimately linked to the rise of 'philanthrocapitalism,' which advances business solutions to address the problem of poverty. Through interviews with farmers, policymakers and agricultural scientists, Jacqueline Ignatova shows how efforts to transform the seed sector in northern Ghana – one of the key laboratories of this 'new Green Revolution' – may serve to exacerbate the inequality it was notionally intended to address. But she also argues that its effects in Ghana have been far more complex than either side of the debate has acknowledged, with local farmers proving adept at blending traditional and modern agricultural methods that subvert the interests of global agribusiness.
Since 1957, more than 45 African countries have received aid from China, yet until recently little has been known about the effectiveness or impact of this assistance. Bräutigam provides the first authoritative account of China's experience as an aid donor in rural Africa. In a detailed and highly readable analysis, the author draws on anthropology, economics, organization theory and political science to explain how China's domestic agenda shaped the design of its aid, and how domestic politics in African countries influenced its outcome.
Scenes of starvation have drawn the world's attention to Africa's agricultural and environmental crisis. Some observers question whether this continent can ever hope to feed its growing population. Yet there is an overlooked food resource in sub-Saharan Africa that has vast potential: native food plants. When experts were asked to nominate African food plants for inclusion in a new book, a list of 30 species grew quickly to hundreds. All in all, Africa has more than 2,000 native grains and fruitsâ€""lost" species due for rediscovery and exploitation. This volume focuses on native cereals, including: African rice, reserved until recently as a luxury food for religious rituals. Finger millet, neglected internationally although it is a staple for millions. Fonio (acha), probably the oldest African cereal and sometimes called "hungry rice." Pearl millet, a widely used grain that still holds great untapped potential. Sorghum, with prospects for making the twenty-first century the "century of sorghum." Tef, in many ways ideal but only now enjoying budding commercial production. Other cultivated and wild grains. This readable and engaging book dispels myths, often based on Western bias, about the nutritional value, flavor, and yield of these African grains. Designed as a tool for economic development, the volume is organized with increasing levels of detail to meet the needs of both lay and professional readers. The authors present the available information on where and how each grain is grown, harvested, and processed, and they list its benefits and limitations as a food source. The authors describe "next steps" for increasing the use of each grain, outline research needs, and address issues in building commercial production. Sidebars cover such interesting points as the potential use of gene mapping and other "high-tech" agricultural techniques on these grains. This fact-filled volume will be of great interest to agricultural experts, entrepreneurs, researchers, and individuals concerned about restoring food production, environmental health, and economic opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa. Selection, Newbridge Garden Book Club
