Round one million of pro- GMO vs. anti-GMO battle: Colin Todhunter vs. Tony Trewavas

Pro-GMO versus anti-GMO is an epic fight that is featured in many articles on this website. One group says gene-modified crops are the salvation for Africa (and the world's) agricultural and food security issues, the other group says GMOs are causing the sky to fall. Naturally, both sides have what they consider to be absolutely iron-clad 'evidence' to back up their view. Each side heatedly accuses the other of either being too dumb and/or naive to see things properly (i.e. 'my way') or believes the other side to be evil tools of the devil.

There are no new pro or anti-GM arguments in GMOs: Where Does Science Begin and Lobbying End?, nor in the article to which it is a response, Genetic Engineering. Where does Science End and Lobbying begin? A Response to a Prominent pro-GMO scientist, which in turn is a response to,  “So You Want to Help Africa Mr Paterson? Then Stop Promoting Ideology and Falsehoods to Push GMOs.”

The antagonists are feverishly passionate in making their pro or anti arguments, but all those arguments are the standard ones that followers of the battle have been presented with over the years.

African Agriculture

Southern Africa region's cereal deficit

by Irene !Hoaës

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region recorded a drop of about 7 percent in cereal production from 33.81 million tonnes in 2011 to 31.47 million tonnes in 2012.

However, according to a brief of the SADC agricultural desk issued in August, this is slightly up by 2 percent compared to the past five-year average (2007–2011) cereal production.

Most countries, at least ten of twelve countries with data, have recorded decreases in cereal production in 2012, ranging from 1 percent in South Africa to as high as 60 percent in Lesotho when compared to cereal production in 2011.

Only Namibia and Tanzania had increased harvests in 2012 compared to 2011.

The poor crop production performance in many member states in the 2011/12 agricultural season has seen the region experiencing a cereal deficit of about 5.55 million tonnes in the 2012/13 marketing year, compared to a cereal deficit of 0.21 million tonnes in the 2011/12 marketing year.

All SADC member states except Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia recorded overall cereal deficits. Zambia recorded a cereal surplus of 1.11 million tonnes followed by Malawi with 0.56 million tonnes and Tanzania with 0.19 million tonnes.

For the first time since the 2006/07 marketing year, the region has recorded a maize deficit, assessed at 0.64 million tonnes, as regional availability of 28.86 million tonnes fall short of regional requirement of 29.49 million tonnes.

The current deficit is significantly the opposite of a maize surplus of 3.41 million tonnes recorded during the 2011/12 marketing year.

All countries have recorded maize deficits in the 2012/13 marketing year except Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The region also continues to register regional deficits in the other main cereal crops of wheat, rice, sorghum and millet.

full article...New Era

G8 forgets how 'green revolution' conditions in Africa differ from those in Asia

Chido Makunike

U.S. president Barack Obama and his G8 pals are the latest do-gooders who are in short order going to bring about a ''green revolution' in Africa.

So far the entirely predictable reactions have been along the lines of whether that is a good or bad thing. Peddlers of fertilizer and agro-chemicals, hybrid and GM seed, thousands of NGOs and 'non profits' who hope to be part of the feeding trough of 'projects' sure to ensue have all wet themselves with excitement at the G8's New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.

On the other side are the usual motley crew of activists who immediately see red at the expression 'green revolution' for a whole host of reasons not necessary to rehash here. Their skeptical to hostile reaction to the G8 plan is as standard and predictable as agribusinesses' support of it.

But let's  step away from that pro/anti-green revolution dichotomy for a moment, and reflect on some of the reasons why there almost cannot be an Asia-style green revolution in Africa even if there was broad agreement that it was a good thing to aim for, which there clearly isn't.

* Africa is not a country. for better or for worse, it is made up of 50+ sovereign states. To talk about almost anything 'for Africa,' let alone a green revolution, is almost nonsensical by definition. These countries often have great political and economic differences between them. Those differences unfortunately mean they sometimes struggle to cooperate on simple things which would clearly be to their benefit. The idea that outsiders are going to be able to coordinate them into a continent-wide 'Africa green revolution' is silly. The best anybody can do is to seek some examples of national and perhaps regional-level interventions in the relatively few areas that are considered green-revolution prepped, which is by no means all of the continent.

* Africa is a huge land mass; most of its countries much bigger geographically than those of Asia. Population densities in Africa are on average much lower than those in Asia and populations are often much more scattered in Africa. This is one reason why 'development' interventions of any type are much more difficult in such conditions. Asia's relatively small countries and dense population densities made green revolution 'developmental' or business-penetration strategies a very different proposition from those of most parts of Africa.

* Poor infrastructure linking (or not linking) these scattered, sparse populations, with sometimes very long distances between them, are a major reason strapped governments struggle to deliver 'development' to them.

The G8 plan may emphasize the role of 'private sector investment,' but what does that really mean?

A fertilizer multinational that opens depots for its products is 'investing,' but is surely not going to invest in the good roads to improve accessibility at a reasonable price. Of course that is not a foreign private company's responsibility anyway, but no such access infrastructure and you lack one critical 'green revolution' ingredient. The road or railway that would deliver fertilizer to some remote settlement is also what would deliver the farmers' produce to distant markets. These are the great underlying infrastructural challenges to 'development' in many parts of Africa, long before you excitedly dream up a business plan to have many more African farmers as customers for your fertilizer, hybrid or GM seeds.

* The agri-climate conditions in Africa are on average very different from those of Asia. Much of  Asia is in a heavy rain belt while much of Africa is dry and getting drier. No amount of promised new 'drought-tolerant' hybrid or GM seeds is going to make up for this difference.

This is just scratching the surface. The point is that improving agriculture in Africa requires very different thinking than the catch-all expression 'green revolution' can possibly cover. Even if there was unanimity of opinion that a high-inputs green revolution is just what Africa needs, there are so many factors about how to effect it that many of today's 'experts' seem to be oblivious of, like so many others before them.

Long before you read the nitty gritties of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, you get a sense that these very smart, probably generally well-intentioned people are making promises of results in conditions they have very little real understanding of.

African Agriculture

              

Is the G8's 'worthy proposal to lift millions out of poverty' really about African agricultural development, or is it about other agendas?

by Chido Makunike

The 'G8' nations recently met in Chicago, USA with much fanfare. One of the outcomes of their meeting, announced by U.S. president Barack Obama, was what the Washington Post, in an approving, even gushing commentary by that influential newspaper's editorial board, called 'a worthy G-8 proposal (that) aims to lift millions out of poverty.'

The Post does a good job of summarizing the main highlights of the proposal:

'By 2050, the region’s (sub-Saharan Africa) total population will double. Without increased agricultural productivity, the region’s poverty and malnutrition will not only persist but worsen. President Obama...announced...joint effort to lift 50 million people in the region out of extreme poverty within 10 years.'

Who could possibly be against or suspicious of such a noble, obviously well-intentioned proposal? It is  by the world's richest, most powerful nations, and announced by the first ever African American president, adored and idolized across Africa on tee shirts and posters like a pop or soccer star?

Yet the very fact that it is a plan conceived and championed by a foreign president, rather than being 'home-grown' in Africa, may be one of the first hints of where this ambitious plan may run into trouble. Can real , sustainable 'development' be imported, or is it necessarily a hard, messy process that those who wish to undergo it must define and spearhead themselves?

It is one thing for one person/party to help another in his or her path to 'development,' however defined. But it is quite another to seek to design and direct that development for that other. The latter is exactly how the 'the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition' appears in its conception and in the way it has been presented.

The four African presidents (Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania) almost seemed to be bystanders at the announcement by Obama of a plan designed to address deep developmental issues that are primarily their responsibility, and that are arguably only solvable at a local level anyway. The presidents were said to have been 'invited' to the G8 meeting for the announcement of the plan, but they might as well have been misbehaving school boys who were summoned by their headmaster! They were pitifully made to look like mere passengers in the formulation of ideas about some of their countries' greatest challenges. It is not an auspicious start.

'Oh you're just being negative and cynical. If the plan works to lift 50 million people out of poverty in 10 years, what does it matter how incidental and irrelevant the African presidents have been made to look. After all, they have failed in 50 years to do the job that Obama promises to do in a decade. The Africans should just get out of his way, gratefully stand aside while Obama and the G8 'develop' 50 million of them out of poverty.'

It may be crudely expressed here, but this seems very much to be the attitude informing the whole initiative, with some African leaders so in the thrall of Obama's star power (sweetened by the G8's promise to feed Africa's deep, debilitating malady of donor dependency with money and 'project's to be thrown its way') that they reverentially, unquestiningly are going along with it.

However, over the average 50 years of Africa's independence, there is now a strong body of evidence that no matter how 'innocent' and well-meaning initiatives that are conceived, set up and implemented as the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition seems to be, for one or more reasons they are not and cannot be the 'short cut' to African 'development' that some might wish for.

But wait, this initiative will be different from all previous, mostly failed 'donor' interventions of the past decades. It's got to and is bound to work. How is it different, other than being champoined by an American president who a disturbing number of Africans regard with almost naive, almost childish infatuation? Let us let the enthusiastic Washington Post tell us:

'The innovative strategy behind the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition is to foster political reform as a means of encouraging increased private investment in agriculture.'

Uh oh! If that is the new 'innovation,' the plan may be even more ill-conceived than it first appeared. How on earth are foreign powers, no matter how rich and no matter how charming are considered some of their leaders, going to significantly, externally 'foster political reform' in close to 50 sovereign, disparate nations enough to lift 50 million people out of poverty in a decade? Can such 'political reform' be easily forced from outside, across dozens of countries at widely varying levels of political and economic development?

Asking these rude questions is not to wish failure upon the plan. It is merely to suggest that at least as so far announced, it sounds depressingly, familiarly like a well-intentioned foreign fantasy.

The part about 'encouraging private investment in agriculture' is a little easier to understand. That loose phrase is obviously subject to widely different interpretations, and leaves room for all kinds of things, fair or foul.

A hopeful intepretation of that phrase would be that the African countries who are roped into this scheme would really be assisted to increase their agricultural production and value-addition capabilities. A more cynical intepretation is that it is much more likely that the 'donor'/investing countries speaheading the plan are far more likely to principally be concerned about 'private investment in agriculture' that mainly aims to create or increase markets for their own industries, with any benefits to the African beneficiaries being relatively minor and incidental.

There are 50 years of evidence in Africa that this is how 'aid,' no matter how labelled, is fundamentally structured and delivered. There are some kinds of 'aid'/investment that may actually so be 'expensive' and weakening (loss of initiative and confidence; loss of independence of thought and action; frustration of local enterprise; foreign flooding of markets, ) etc) that it may be better to forgo it. Perhaps this new scheme is different, but it is disturbing that there has been no appearance of any significant African input into its formulation, and little African critique of it.

'Encouraging private investment by fostering political reform' hardly sounds like something that would come out of the thinking of most African governments. Most of them may not be particularly keen on reforming (or being reformed) but will willingly go along with such an idea proposed by the American 'rock star' many of them hold in awe, especially if the insistence on 'reform' is accompanied by the inducement of a hit of the drug of  'aid' of one kind or another.

Editorializes the Washington Post, ''According to Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), political barriers have doomed past agricultural development strategies in sub-Saharan Africa, the only region in the world to see no substantial agricultural growth in the past 40 years. Excessive government involvement and corruption have dissuaded investors and discouraged local farmers. Government restrictions on seed variety have inhibited local entrepreneurship and lowered sales. A lack of collateral has prevented farmers from obtaining loans or insurance.''

Who is going to decide what is 'excessive government involvement' and what isn't? The 'aid' recipient or the donor government? In a case of disagreement between the two, who is going to hold the balance of power to get their way? All these situations have been experienced before all over Africa, now with known, predictable results.

There may be cases where  government involvement may indeed have been 'excessive' and a disincentive to agricultural investment, local or foreign. But no blanket statement can be made about this. There are just as many or even more cases where the overall level of agricultural or 'general' development (roads, dams,etc) is so low that the main problem is not 'excessive government involvement,' but actually too little.

Aside from clear-cut issues like the need for infrastructure provision by government, in countries with poorly developed markets, giving 'investors' free rein can also be a recipe for disaster because it is so easy for them to distort the fair functioning of those markets. More developed economies may have many built-in protections against potential abuses that may not require direct government intervention, but many poor countries do not. Government intervention,with all its problems, may in those situations be necessary to prevent farmers from being exploited. Where 'investors' are regarded as gods, such nuances are lost, at the expense of the very same farmers whose welfare everyone swears is their passionate, innocent, selfless concern.

Once a poor little country gets mixed up in some grand agricultural initiative cooked up in far-off Washington DC, will it still have the freedom and wherewithal to make the best determination for itself, or will it be steam-rollered into going along with the grand foreign plan against its own best judgement in exchange for whatever alms it wil be receiving? There are many precendents for this.

When ill-conceived, badly designed and poorly implemented foreign 'donor' projects have failed, the standard (though often unspoken) response has been to say, ''You know how difficult it is to help those cantenkerous Africans; nothing works there no matter how well we design 'development projects' for and throw money at them.'

An encouraging recent trend is more African countries spurning the long-held 'wisdom' that 'domors' are also automatically the repositories of what is best; what will work and what won't.

Just one example is the bumper maize harvests that the late, now much reviled Malawian president helped his previously famine-prone country achieve by rejecting the standard 'expert' wisdom that farm subsidies may be alright in Europe or the U,S., but of you are a small African nation, 'thou shall not institute subsidies.'

From one point of view, that was a case of 'excessive government intervention.' But at least as a short term measure, it achieved amazing results that stumped all the failed advice of the presumed donor holders of all wisdom, who on seeing its results joined in supporting the program after all, happy to then usurp it is their own!

That was an example of a small, poor African country innovating with the few resources it had, to achieve results appropriate for its situation.

The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition smacks of a reversal of this welcome recent trend of African countries beginning to have the confidence to find locally, situationally appropriate agricultural interventions. All the evidence of decades of foreign-designed interventions that have resulted in the sprouting of a thriving donor-receiving NGO 'industry' all over Africa, but precious little actual 'development,' makes one wonder if this new G8 'innovation' is a step forward or a step backwards.

If anything ought to have been learned these past 50 years, it is that 'development' cannot necessarily be addressed by throwing 'aid' (or in this case, suspiciously ill-defined 'investment') and that hard, messy and frustrating as it is, it most certainly cannot be outsourced to outsiders, no matter how well-meaning they claim or appear to be.

Oh sure, get ready to see a lot more USAID-funded projects in the countries anointed to participate in the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. Speaking of alliances, the new plan should dovetail very nicely with the softening-up work that the Bill Gates Foundation-funded Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has been doing for some years in several countries.

And how to intepret Shah of USAID's statement about how 'government restrictions on seed variety have inhibited local entrepreneurship and lowered sales?'

The only widespread 'government restriction on seed variety' in Africa is the widespread opposition to GM seeds. This thinking may change in different countries in response to different inputs, at different paces, which is at it should be. Given how aggressively the U.S. government pushes for the global uptake of a technology that American companies like the infamous Monsanto dominate, it seems safe to predict that the African countries that are going to be roped into the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition will rapidly fall to subtle and not so subtle GM pressures from their 'friend,' like dominoes!   

Take your pick: do you want our aid, 'investment' and support, or do you not? If yes, here are the terms, and GM seeds will be good for you, and for us! If no, are you with us or against us? You poor, ungrateful little trouble-making country!

None of this high-stakes, arm-twisting  'GM diplomacy' is really as far-fetched as it may sound, if the revelations of Wikileaks are any indication. Proferred 'assistance' by rich nations to poor ones is often a poisoned chalice. One is often forced to question how alert to this most African 'leaders' are.

One wants to support any initiative that ostensibly has the noble goals outlined by Obama for the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. But there have been so many high-sounding agricultural/poverty-alleviation initiatives over many decades that didn't go anywhere. At best, the G8 initiative for now only deserves wary inpsection, rather than the gushing praise of theWashington Post or the unquestioning, unalytical regurgitation of the propaganda accompanying the announcement that most of the African media have been content with.

The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition may turn out to have elements that may complement various ongoing African efforts to kickstart agriculture. But if Africa's rulers snooze, fail to analyze the sweet talk or simply sell out their countries to sharks posing as investors, it also is a scheme that has potential to 'lift 50 million out of poverty' not by strengthening the continent's agricultural capacity, but mainly in ways that merely create a new class of consumers for foreign interests posing as philanthropists.

Africa, beware of the intentions of those bearing 'free' gifts. You will have to do the hard work of 'developing' yourself; there are no short cuts.

African Agriculture

Poor 2011 rains result in disastrous Gambia food harvests

The poor 2011 experienced in much of the Sahel region of West African extended further down south to fertile and normally wet country of Gambia.

The country's ministry of agriculture has declared the 2011/12 farming season a 'failure,' resulting a reduction in harvests of as much as 70% over the previous season.

National food security will be seriously compromised for all key crops. Rice, groundnuts, millets, maize, sorghum and others may be only enough to cover families for an average of two months, versus the usual 4-6 months of better years. An emergency call has gone out for international assistance.

The government has also sought to make preparations for the inputs needs of future farming seasons. Seeds of various types are said to be in the annual requirement of 25, 000 tonnes, while 40, 000 of fertilizer is required.

The Daily Observer

Cassava's climate change benefits provide an opportunity to reduce African maize dependence

by Chido Makunike

The predictions of the likely effects of climate change on agriculture in Africa have been negative, with already yearly increasing evidence that maize cultivation is becoming more difficult. Given the importance of maize as the maize staple food of many Africans, the implications for an already precarious food security may be dire.

But now comes the news that another important but neglected staple starch food, cassava, may actually thrive in the climatic conditions that are predicted for the Africa of the future. 

In tests of various climate change models by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, cassava did better than potatoes, maize, beans, bananas, millet and sorghum.

Andy Jarvis, the lead author of the report of the research, said, “It deals with almost anything the climate throws at it. It thrives in high temperatures, and if drought hits it simply shuts down until the rains come again. There’s no other staple out there with this level of toughness.”

African farmers are well acquanted with cassava's toughness, as evidence by its cultivation in even almost desert-like conditions where many other crops struggle to survive. It's secondary role to maize in the diets of many Africans is partly because of its longer preparation times and its even more bland taste.

Yet the slavish dependence on a crop, maize, which all the evidence suggests is no longer as well-suited to cultivation in large parts of Africa as it once was is a grave danger to the continent's food security.

Perhaps the new study's confirmation of cassava's particular resilience to cultivation in harsh climates could be used as a wedge to open a littler wider the door to making the point that Africa needs to put serious and urgent attention into developing alternatives to maize.

African Agriculture   
    

Not all sector players happy as Malawi, fearing shortages, bans maize exports

Malawi has banned the export of maize and maize-based products until further notice. The December 28 2011 ban has been spurred by fears of a shortage of the country’s staple crop over fears of a much reduced harvest in the current crop season, because of late and erratic rains.

A maize shortage would be a dramatic change from the last several years of an annual maize surplus, based on the combination of good rain and an agricultural inputs subsidy programme for the country’s farmers.

A maize shortage would have the political fall out of people asking why more attempts were not made to build up a maize reserve in the years of bumper harvests. Neighboring Zambia, also enjoying recent good maize harvests and also fearing shortages this year because of poor rain, has justified the levels of its exports partly on the basis of limited storage facilities.

In the event of a shortage of the region’s main staple food, no one is likely to listen sympathetically to such excuse after several good harvests. Ordinary people may not care much about how much surplus maize is exported, with many even seeing that as a country proudly serving a regional ‘breadbasket’ function. All this will be forgotten in the recriminations that would accompany shortages, high prices and imports of maize.

Malawi president President Bingu wa Mutharika, the architect of the subsidy programme and also occupying the agriculture portfolio, has warned against the ‘careless’ selling of maize, urging farmers to hold on to their stocks until the current season’s prospects become clear.

Maize in Malawi is typically planted in October/November with the onset of the rains, with harvest in April/May. Many farmers who planted on the early rains had to replant in December/January when their maize plants died. Delayed planting will inevitably reduce yields.

Maize prices have already begun to shoot up in Malawi in anticipation of shortages, reportedly by up to 50% in some cases. Farmers who happily sold their maize during good harvests are now finding that they have to pay two or three times as much, with the next harvest still two months away and expected to be poor.

Not all sector players are in favor of the ban. Intra-regional maize growing inequalities mean that there is always a sure market for this key staple. Farmers and traders who target the lucrative regional market are, unsurprisingly, not happy about the export ban. Traders could take advantage of the low maize purchase prices when there is a glut, and make a good profit from exporting at much higher prices to countries experiencing maize shortage.

While the government must necessarily prioritize maize food security, Farmers Union of Malawi President Felix Jumbe argued against the ban on the grounds of lost foreign currency earnings for the country. The government, also wanting foreign currency proceeds at a time of generally poor economic performance compounded by the withdrawal of the support of some international donors, has been anxious to assure traders that the ban is temporary pending clear results on the size of this year’s maize harvest.

African Agriculture

Inputs subsidy schemes: does easy fertilizer access discourage good soil management?

by Chido Makunike

Malawi can justifiably be very proud of its farming inputs subsidy programme. For several years in a row, it has produced surpluses of the country’s staple crop, maize. Considering the several prior years of maize famine the country experienced, the turn around is a huge achievement.

From the beginning, there have been questions about the cost sustainability of the programme. Last year, the extent of the subsidy scheme had to be scaled back over a diplomatic dispute with and the subsequent reduction of aid by Britain, a major donor. But none of these challenges detracts from Malawi’s success at addressing a key issue.

Good rains fortuitously accompanied the first several years of the subsidy. The 2011/12 farming season is the first one since the subsidy was introduced that the rain season is expected to be below average. It will be interesting to see what new lessons will be learned from the new variable of poor rains.

However, there is already enough known over many decades for some of the adjustments that may need to be made to the subsidy programme to be highlighted.

The benefits of fertilizer are clear. Availability and cost are the key issues limiting its use in Africa. But one of the downsides of ready fertilizer availability and relatively easy affordability is that they encourage laziness with regards to soil management.

Fertilizer’s effects on plant growth are so quick and dramatic that when many farmers know they will definitely have it; there seems little point in natural soil fertility improvement measures. Yet fertilizer use should ideally go hand in hand with other soil management techniques.

Some of the reasons for this fertilizer-caused soil fertility negligence are obvious and understandable. Most small holder farming is a very hard slog for often very little return. For most farmers, it is already back breaking work before you add the additional tasks of maintaining, say, compost. On poor soils where fertilizer is not available, soil supplementation measures may add to the manual drudgery of farming, but the farmer knows s/he simply cannot avoid it if a reasonable yield is to be expected from that poor soil.

Fertilizer, with its quick, direct shot of basic nutrients to the plant, is therefore a very effective, attractive alternative to the harder work of natural soil fertility supplementation. Farmers are well aware that fertilizer cannot replace natural soil fertility. Nevertheless, when fertilizer is available, the reality of their existence makes sole reliance on it by many farmers irresistible because of its ease of application and its immediate, dramatic results.

But a season of poor rainfall like the present one dramatically decreases the usefulness of fertilizer. Fertilizer application must be soon followed by soil-soaking rain or irrigation. If not, the un-dissolved fertilizer will not only be of no use to the plant, if near physically enough to the plant, it may burn it.

Poor rainfall seasons are when the benefits of naturally rich soils are most apparent. Soil with lots of plant matter in it will have many of the basic nutrients even before or without the additional application of fertilizer. Critically, moisture retention is much higher in such soils, which can make all the difference in whether a plant survives until the next rainfall, or wilts and dies before. If and when fertilizer is applied to such naturally rich soil, it is as a fertility boost, rather than as the only means of feeding the plant. Fertilizer used in this way can be stretched out to cover a larger area without sacrificing per hectare yields.

All these well known facts are often ignored in the excitement of widely available fertilizer and the euphoria of ‘bumper harvests.’ Soil fertility caution is thrown to the wind and fertilizer is treated as if it could replace well fed soils, which it cannot.

Fertilizer subsidies are simply too expensive to continue indefinitely. Sooner or later the long term costs of neglecting basic soil fertility will catch up with a country’s agriculture. Good soil management is a process, not a one time event like applying a dose of fertilizer. Unfortunately, attention to soil fertility is usually paid in times of crisis, when compost, manure or mulch cannot be used as an emergency measure for the sudden absence of fertilizer or sufficient rain. Their use needs to be emphasized on an on-going basis, even when fertilizer is readily available.

The poor rains in Malawi and the rest of the region are likely to result in dramatically decreased maize harvests in 2012. But they may also provide another opportunity to remind farmers and governments that regardless of the success of an inputs subsidy, it is dangerous to treat fertilizer as if it could be a substitute for good soil management. Fertilizer use and good soil management must be treated as complementary to each other.

To ignore this in times of good rains, accessible fertilizer and bumper harvests is to simply postpone reckoning with the problems that build up when soil management is ignored. Those problems will become dramatically apparent in times when one or more of the elements needed for fertilizer to produce its results, such as good rain, is missing.

African Agriculture

Maize exports threaten South Africa’s food security

A government-backed plan to export a record maize surplus may leave local silos drained of South Africa’s staple food by the end of April. The price of white maize has risen to a record in Johannesburg and the country is importing yellow maize for the first time in two years.

Gina Schoeman, an economist at Absa, said in mid January that millers, chicken producers and cattle breeders faced a surge in costs, and food inflation might quicken to as much as 15 percent from 11.1 percent in November last year.

“It is clear now that exports were done irresponsibly,” said Chris Schutte, the chief executive of chicken producer Astral Foods. The price hikes “will hit that section of the market that can afford it the least.”

Facing a record surplus two years ago after the biggest crop in almost three decades, farmer bodies such as Grain SA, which represents 7 000 commercial growers, pushed the government into helping find new maize markets from South Korea to Italy and Mexico.

“There will be very little maize left in silos come April 30,” said Christo Booyens, the assistant general manager for Grainlink marketing service at grain storage firm Senwes. “Ideally you want about six weeks’ stocks to ensure smooth supplies to millers.”

South Africa needed to import 700 000 tons of maize between January and July, Grain SA chief executive Jannie de Villiers said. Senwes said the crop would mostly be delivered to silos in June and July.

South Africa has exported 2.14 million tons of maize in the marketing year that began in May, compared with 2.07 million tons in all of last season, according to the SA Grain Information Service (Sagis).

Maize inventories plunged 40 percent in November from a year earlier, the biggest drop in that month since 2000, Sagis said. Measured in dollars, the price of white maize has risen 69 percent over the past year on the SA Futures Exchange to about $335 a ton, while the benchmark price of maize in Chicago has fallen 8.8 percent.

Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said in April last year that the government had successfully drained a grain surplus that could have damaged the maize industry.

Simphiwe Ngqangweni, the acting director-general of the Department of Agriculture, said in January that the price increases were a result of demand and supply forces in a free market.

While South Africa had traditionally bought maize from Argentina in times of need, that country now produced much of its grain using a genetically modified seed variety that had not yet been approved locally for import, said Schutte at Astral Foods.

The price spike is the latest disruption caused by government management of the country’s food supply. In 2005, officials overestimated the size of the crop, driving prices to a record low and forcing some farmers out of business.



“If it wasn’t for supplies from the Black Sea countries, South Africa would be in very big trouble,” Schutte said. “Does it make sense for a country where maize is the basic foodstuff to export it at R1 400 a ton and buy it back at R2 800?”

Sagis said 81 885 tons of Romanian maize had arrived in the country since December 10, and 58 321 tons of white maize have been imported from Zambia this season. South Africa has shipped maize to Zambia in three of the past nine years.

In rand, local maize prices have almost doubled in the past year.

“It would have been a different story if it wasn’t a basic foodstuff, and if food security wasn’t the third priority on the government’s agenda,” said Schutte. “In such a case, you need a more comprehensive strategy.”

Bloomberg

The possible challenges posed by Zambia’s maize exports to its neighbors

Zambia sold 226,229 tonnes of maize to countries in the southern, eastern and central African sub regions, for the marketing season up to January 27 2012.

The Times of Zambia reports (01 February 2012) that the Food Reserve Agency, which effectively also serves as the country’s maize marketing body, sold a total of 444,641 tonnes of maize valued at US$69million to the local market and in exports.

The FRA is the government body charged with buying maize from Zambian farmers, maintaining a strategic reserve of the staple crop and exporting any surplus. Zambia has enjoyed a number of years of good maize harvests, harvesting 3 million tonnes in the 2010/11 season, up slightly from the previous season’s 2.8 million tones.

Late and erratic rains during the current (October 2011-May 2012) maize growing season throughout the sub-region have raised alarms of a maize deficits in several countries, including Malawi and Zambia, which in recent years have made up for the production shortfalls in countries like Zimbabwe and others. With almost the whole region having experienced late and erratic rains, there is a real risk of significant maize shortages in many countries.

The current doubtful maize-growing season will severely test the overall food security strategy of Zambia. Having overcome the basic issue of producing enough maize for local consumption plus a surplus over a number of seasons, the 2012 harvest season may show whether enough has been done to prepare for poor maize seasons. There will be a political, economic and food security implications if the maize harvest is much lower than expected and if the FRA does not have enough of a reserve in its silos to cover the difference.

Questions will be asked about the wisdom of having exported so much of the surplus in the good years. On the other hand, the FRA has many capacity constraints that limit how much of any season’s surplus it can soak up. One key such constraint is limited storage facilities, which in 2011 saw some exposed stored maize being rained on.

Agriculture minister Emmanuel Chenda dismisses such concerns. According to a January 19 2012 Reuters report, he said, "We are monitoring the situation very carefully to ensure that we don't end up importing maize. I think we are standing on very firm ground in

terms of food security. We had more than one million tonnes of surplus maize. We decided to export 600,000 tonnes because we didn't have storage space and so far we

have sold 200,000 tonnes,"

Maize is, unfortunately, almost the very definition of ‘food security’ in many African countries. The given reason of lack of storage space for selling off some of Zambia’s maize surplus is basically sound. And of course, maize is also an economic commodity like any other, so if there is extra of it to earn a country hard currency export earnings, that is always welcome. 

The Reuters report quotes a Zambian economist as alleging that the Zambian government was buying the maize at above market prices and selling it at reduced prices. He said this meant the government was effectively using "Treasury funds to subsidize the region."

The economist did not explain why Zambia would export its maize at a loss, assuming his charge was true. But it must be pointed out that an additional element of the mythical importance that maize has been allowed to assume is that for many African countries, being able to export maize is seen as a matter of great national prestige; a universally understood marker in maize-dependent countries of agricultural success.

All this will be turned on its head if Zambia finds itself needing to import maize in 2012. The ‘prestige’ of maize surplus will suddenly turn to the ‘embarrassment’ of maize shortages and imports.

This will be further complicated by the maize deficits that seem likely throughout the region in 2012. A regional maize shortage would mean more expensive exports from further away.

When there are good rains, Zambia seems to have found the answers to growing enough maize for its needs plus a surplus. However, 2012’s expected poor maize harvest may expose the many remaining challenges that need to be addressed for longer-term food security. Among them is more investment in grain storage facilities, as well as an expansion in irrigated versus rain-fed maize cultivation.

African Agriculture

Foreign farm investors flock to Ethiopia, but food self-sufficiency not in sight

by Keffyalew Gebremedhin

As if it were a rehearsal for year-end message, in early November the ministry of agriculture announced, “Ethiopia is working towards commercializing agriculture and [realizing] its full potential to provide each household surplus and income for its growing population.” As an idea that looks to the future, there is nothing wrong with that — except that the officials preferred to be opaque when it came to linking the anticipated outcome with the means they would employ.

This took place at an important regional conference, whose theme was Productivity and Enhancing food Security in Africa: New Challenges and Opportunities, held in Addis Abeba from 1-3 November. The official who represented the government and launched the conference chose to reiterate the usual set position, especially at a time when Ethiopia has continued to be hit harder by inadequate domestic food production and distribution, against the backdrop of double-digit-inflation. Data released by the government on 13 December indicated that in the last one year, inflation has pushed food prices by a whopping 50.3 percent.

Unfortunately, the agriculture ministry even seemed coy to show a vision behind the plan; as the government’s representative limited himself to iterating, “The government has taken strong policy measures to recognize agriculture as an engine of the economy and a means to fight poverty.” This took many people by surprise, since it sounded as if State Minister for Agriculture Wondirad Mandefro was announcing to the conference a new government strategy two decades after the Meles regime seized power and massive resources have been thrown at agriculture, without any sign of the country becoming self-sufficient in food production now or the likelihood of it at in the foreseeable future.

Instead, the state minister stated that the government has been spending on agriculture more than 14 percent of GDP, in his words, “exceeding the target set by Maputo Declaration to meet the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program targets.” He then recalled how it was foreseen in the government plan to double agricultural GDP to achieve food self-sufficiency at the household and national level through the growth and transformation plan (GTP 2011 – 2014/15). Not only the GTP is treated these days as an all cure; but also he made it the basis of his prediction of agricultural production.

If the news report is accurate, the official chose to rely on economic growth patterns of the past few years. He then boldly asserted that the economy would “continue to grow with a double-digit for subsequent eight years.” If that is the basis on which the future of the country’s goal of food self-sufficiency is being predicated, I lost him there. What else can one say in the face of such a known trouble ahead, save fearing for the state of the nation and future generations!

One person who was not entirely sanguine with everything he heard at the conference was Monty Jones, the Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. He politely took the floor to give a sense of what African countries needed to do. He urged them “to go beyond just research to increase productivity that enables to reduce hunger and poverty.”

As to this year’s harvest, ten days after the conference and in connection with the 2011 harvest season, Ms.Samiya Zekeria, Director-General of Ethiopia’s Central Statistics Agency (CSA), announced that she expected over 218.3 million quintals of output to be harvested from small-scale private farms on over 12.1 million hectares of land this year, according to the Ethiopian News Agency. She reported this represented an increase of 15 million quintals, compared with that of same period last year.

Tentative as this data is, it is difficult to establish whether the increases reflects productivity gains or mere expansion of land under crops. Last year’s CSA data indicated that crop land increased by about 200,000 hectares. Already on the face of this forecast, one is inclined to think that a great deal of work and appropriate policies are badly needed to guide Ethiopia’s agriculture to a better future.

Not long ago FAO’s Assistant Director General Hafez Ghanem alerted African journalists as to the what culprits are lurking behind the rise in food prices the world over. While he emphasized that agricultural investments alone are not sufficient conditions in and of their own, he urged each country to examine its particular conditions more seriously and adopt appropriate polices, instead of clinging to everything that is being presented as causes for the rising food prices.

The need for such an approach, he said, should be given sufficient consideration since “The available data show that the situation is different in each country. In some countries, price rises have meant higher prices for farmers, while in others this is not the case, which is generally the result of the fact that governments are hindering the transfer from the global market to the farmers.”

To the thinking of the assistant director-general, Ghana represented an example of a successful country regarding agricultural development. He observed in that regard:

Notwithstanding the fact that Africa still has a long way to go in the battle against hunger, even so, despite everything, [the region] has recorded some successes in this area. Take the case of Ghana in particular. This country has succeeded in achieving its Millennium Development Goal 
(MDG) aiming to cut the proportion of its population suffering hunger by half between 1990 and 2015. It did so by supporting its farmers in two important and priority sectors: public investment, particularly in research and development (RD), and ad-hoc policies, which specifically allowed farmers access to seed and the market. These were measures which had been adopted in other countries and explain their relative success.

This reminded me of a news item I read in late August from the association of coffee producers in southern Ethiopia, which wrote a letter to the prime minister and the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) urging them to take urgent measures to tide the growing shift by his members to the production of khat, a stimulant crop in young nation, for lack of bank loans and credits.

Looking at the problem from the economic, financial and land tenure angles, experienced by Ethiopian farmers, Atkilt Admasu and Issac Paul came with new evidence of misguided policies in their ASSESSMENT ON THE MECHANISMS AND CHALLENGES OF SMALL SCALE AGRICULTURAL CREDIT FROM COMMERCIAL BANKS IN ETHIOPIA: THE CASE OF ADA’A LIBEN WOREDA ETHIOPIA, published in the Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa (Vol 12, No.3 2010). Their study found out:

…Agricultural credit in the Woreda [Ada'a Libern] followed a two-tier delivery approach, where input loans were provided to farmers through cooperatives. The main variable to qualify farmers for such loans was their working land size. Nevertheless, due to the shortage of land in the Woreda, the amount of loans, availed in the form of fertilizers, improved seeds, and chemicals, were inadequate. As collateral for the loans, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia secures federal government guarantee, which is considered as cash substitute collateral from Ministry of Finance and Economic Development( MoFED) on the Oromia Regional Government’s subsidy budget. The main reason for many of the default cases was found to be the lack of farmers’ awareness on repayment terms. In a nut shell, the government’s role in the small-scale farmers’ access to bank loans appeared crucial both during loan origination and collection.

At the same time, this shows that there is strong bias in government toward foreign investors. Thus, on the political side the problem is better summed up by the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), which in its 2010 report on Ethiopia wrote:

Indian and Chinese companies encouraged by the Ethiopian government have increased their investment in the agricultural, construction and communication sectors, but have not been able to compensate for deficiencies on the Ethiopian side. The further transformation towards a market economy has been slow due to ideological reservations in the political class and the fear that private investment could be used to bolster the political opposition.

Why should we be alarmed by Ethiopia’s present agricultural policy?

There is no doubt that the government has practically abandoned the 13.4 million small holders long ago, not to speak of nomadic pastoralists. The government is more obsessed with production of cash crops and earning more foreign exchange. Their explanation is that with the cash people could buy their food. It seems our leaders live on a different planet, since otherwise they could not have adopted this disastrous policy at a time when even the rich countries, oil producer included, are trying to run away from food imports, despite their healthier balance of payments.

With such a failed policy and dependence on commercial farms that produce cash crops or foods for export, Ethiopia should not expect to dig its way out of hunger. Nor can it develop as an economy, or make headway in this fiercely competitive world, safeguard the pride and dignity of its citizens and maintain the nation’s independence and sovereignty so long as the policies pursued force it into dependence on international food aid. If one of the state of mind that these agricultural investors would abandon their pursuit of profit and become the new food donors, there is a need for sanity tests.As it stands now, this policy is a road to slavery for a proud nation that cherishes its sense of independence for which huge and historic sacrifices have been paid!

Secondly, as I discussed a few days ago in another article in the context of realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), today in Ethiopia there is 15-20 million people facing hunger everyday. At the same time, according to United Nations reports, 46 percent of Ethiopians live on less than a dollar a day; 51 percent of children are stunted.

What this says is that these people are not a part of the new Ethiopia, whose economic growth is compared to a miracle by the investing world. What they do not realize is that these fast growths are servicing the interests of narrower group(s).

As it happens, for that matter even by official admission, today 12.2 million Ethiopians in 290 food insecure woredas (districts of the country) are categorized as incapable of supporting themselves and are dependent on international food aid. Under normal circumstances, i.e., when there is no drought or famine this number goes down to 7 – 8 million. While this is the reality, government leaders boast that no one has died of hunger in Ethiopia, although secret interviews of farmers filtering out of the country are showing that hunger is closer than a neighbor to many, especially in the southern and south-western parts of the country. Bear in mind that in the past, hunger, drought and famine was mainly a northern Ethiopian phenomenon.

The Productive Safety Net Project (PSNP), financed by the international community, has saved lives in the last five years. Unfortunately, its problem is that it has no successful mechanism for the graduation of the dependent people to become productive and self-supporting citizens, a fact which some in the World Bank have also come to realize.

Misguided commercial agriculture, mostly known by its misnomer (in Ethiopia’s case) ‘farmland grab’

While the dependency on international food aid, discussed above, remains a worrying as to the future of Ethiopia’s agriculture, one of the evolving dangers lies in the country’s fertile lands being doled out mostly to foreign investors. This has been criticized roundly. But nothing could convince Prime Minister Meles Zenawi about the errors of his policies. These are, as Stefano Manservisi put it in 2009, pushing local farmers in a wrong direction; he rightly pointed out that intensifying commercial agriculture at the expense of smallholders would only lead to the exploitation of developing countries. The end result is, he stressed, “The poorest countries are selling commodities, they are exporting migrants and now they are selling their land from which they will not take any kind of benefit in terms of food or whatever.”

Standing side by side (from left) are father Surya Rao Karaturi, and son Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, founder and managing director of Karuturi Global Limited; with Anil Tumu, director of Karuturi Agro Products Plc, and Chombe Seyoum, managing director of Gedeb Engineering Plc. Left: a John Deere tractor.

What commercial agriculture could do to a nation, where local farmers are displaced and their lands are taken away by force or threats, is better articulated a few years ago by Devinder Sharma, analyst with the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in India. Firstly, he predicted discontent of pushed away citizens leading to civil unrest, the undercurrents of which are already being witnessed in Ethiopia.

Secondly and more importantly Sharma looks at the environmental consequences and observes:

Outsourcing food production will ensure food security for investing countries but would leave behind a trail of hunger, starvation and food scarcities for local populations…The environmental tab of highly intensive farming – devastated soils, dry aquifer, and ruined ecology from chemical infestation – will be left for the host country to pick up.

Moreover, there is also the problems of mistreatment and exploitation of the rural population by the investor farmers. The locals are embittered by the exploitation of their labor with payments in some instances of 25 ETB for tractor drivers, which is USD $1.45 a day and less in other areas. Ordinary daily laborers without skills get paid far less than that. Speaking of the exploitation, One Girma Umad, an employee of Saudi Star and who works as machine operator, told Addis Fortune that, although he appreciated the chance to work without having any prior skill sets, he was not happy about the pay. He observed in that regard, “I have managed to develop the skills needed through observation and personal practise…However, the 25 Br I get a day is not even enough for my daily meals.”

How could this be considered an income that should start these people something meaningful for themselves? Most of all, the opportunities for technology transfer are non-existent in most instances, especially in situations where Indian and Chinese investors have brought machine operators from their countries, as happened in Gambella and other leased lands.

Many of the issues surrounding such commercial agriculture remain unresolved. The problem is being felt like fresh wound by literate consumers around the world, because of the dangerous implications of this to food production by smallholder agriculture.

This week the PRI, Public Radio International has become the latest addition to raise a series of unanswered questions about the persistence of the government in Ethiopian in pushing farmers out of their holdings and handing over the most fertile lands to investors. Those who have experienced this misfortune continue to speak out.

On its part, government is denying it has pushed away anyone. It claims the lands were unoccupied as discussed some months back. At that time, Meles said:

What we are doing is putting all unutilized land in this country and we have a lot of unutilized land in the lowlands…What we have done is to build infrastructures in those areas and therefore open up the area for investments both by domestic and foreign private sector on the basis of a clearly set out lease arrangement. That is a win-win arrangement. It is not a land grab. And, therefore, we are very comfortable with the fact that we have put in place all the necessary guidelines, environmental and otherwise, to make sure that everyone benefits from this exercise.

Transforming Ethiopia

The messy link between agrofuels, land grabs and hunger

by Kanya D'Almeida

Part 1

While the United Nations climate talks in Durban continue their political feet-dragging, researchers and peasants around the world are busy connecting the dots between so- called "green climate solutions," industrialised agriculture and chronic hunger.

New research released by the U.S.-based Oakland Institute (OI) reveals the nexus between "false" fuel alternatives such as the development of agrofuels and agroforests and the massive land grab underway in Africa that is stripping thousands of peasants of their land and means of subsistence.

The research cites the hypocrisy of major industrialised actors like the U.S. and the European Union, as well the World Bank Group (WBG) and other development agencies for pouring money into assisting victims of famine and natural disasters, all the while making massive investments in schemes that heat the earth and stifle local development.

Industrialised agricultural practices currently produce 13.5 percent of all green house gas emissions, mostly methane and nitrous oxide. The latter is emitted in huge doses through the spraying of fertiliser, which is used 800 times more frequently today than it was 100 years ago.

The production of fertilisers themselves requires the burning up of fossil fuels, emitting up to 41 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

On top of this, heavy farm machinery spits about 158 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, while the water needed for industrial-style irrigation is pumped using fossil fuels that release another 369 million tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere.

And yet, powerful governments like the U.S. and various players from the eurozone, together with the WBG, continue to advocate for the proliferation of agrofuels, which employ the same dirty, large-scale farming techniques described above, as a "green solution" to the climate crisis.

In fact, the production of mono crop agrofuels guzzle thousands of gallons of freshwater, are processed into biodiesels – the very products that have overheated the planet to begin with – and create long, oil-thirsty transport chains to carry the product. The OI report estimates that the "conversion of rainforests and native grasslands into fields to produce agrofuel crops will release between 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would be reduced following the replacement of fossil fuels with agrofuels. The increase in agrofuel use may release between 44 and 73 million additional tons of CO2 equivalent per year."

The U.S. alone has vowed to increase its use of agrofuels by 30 percent in the coming years.

According to OI's research, five million hectares of land throughout sub-Saharan Africa are currently under cultivation for agrofuel crops like palm trees and eucalyptus, in a multibillion dollar scheme that profits major transnational corporations and their government allies.

The Chinese government now owns eight million hectares of land in the Democratic Republic of Congo for palm oil production, while Crest Global Green, a British bioenergy giant, holds deeds to 900,000 hectares combined in Mali, Guinea, and Senegal.

"We were also shocked to find, during our research, several Scandinavian churches making land investments in countries like Mozambique, in schemes that involved thousands of hectares of illegally acquired land," Frederic Mousseau, the policy director of OI, told IPS.

"We have come to expect this from hedge funds, but not from churches," he added.

"The emergence of carbon trading and carbon markets has also been a major factor in the land grab, with carbon credits being touted as a green solution to the problem of carbon emissions," Mousseau added.

In fact, "the trade in carbon credits involves corporations and governments buying and selling credits in one part of the world in order to continue polluting domestically. Carbon trading not only assigns rights to developed countries and corporations to pollute, but also represents what some are calling "global climate malgovernance"," according to the report.

"Since this is a relatively new phenomenon, we have not yet seen all possible manifestations of the problem," Moussa told IPS. "All we know for sure are the immediate negative consequences of this practice such as investors planting non-native crops which destroy the local environment, replacing rich grasslands with mono crops and denying indigenous groups their rights to land and their traditional practices that respect biodiversity."

David Deng, research director of the South Sudan Law Society, told IPS, "In South Sudan, government officials rarely know what biofuels are, much less carbon credits. As a result, they are often willing to give away these rights for free."

"For the time being, the uncertainty of the transitional context has prevented companies from beginning operations but if these "green" deals (carbon credits and agrofuel projects) in the newly established South Sudan move forward, we will see a massive transfer of wealth from landowning communities in South Sudan to transnational companies in the global North," he added.

Meanwhile Green Resources Ltd, a Norwegian timber company, has embarked on a plan to replace nearly 7,000 hectares of natural Tanzanian grasslands with monocultures of pine and eucalyptus, destroying the local biodiversity, displacing smallholders and burying jobs.

The loss of local employment has been a particularly thorny issue in Sierra Leone, where investments by the Socfin Agricultural Company in the Pujenhun district have marginalized workers in the area.

"Older people who have lost their land are not employed and women have to leave their homes as early as 4:30am to queue for daily wage jobs, which they seldom get," Joseph Rahall, the director of Green Scenery in Sierra Leone, told IPS.

"Vast tracks of land are now being cleared to make way for oil palm monocultures, which cannot be compared to a biodiverse flora. Families from the upland farms used to grow multiple crops capable of absorbing the shocks of food scarcity but many of these families have stopped planting for fear that multinationals will occupy their land," he said.

"Community members who were peacefully protesting the illegal occupation of their land were arrested and are now facing trials in court. The Northern countries' preference for biofuels has deprived countries like ours of basic human security," he added.

IPS

Part 2

The forests in Africa absorb over 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon annually. With these diverse and natural forests, grasslands and prairie lands disappearing under investment schemes and the development of monoculture plantations for supposed "green" energy alternatives like agrofuels, not much else remains to absorb the shocks of hunger and climate change.

"Whether they are for energy or for exports on global markets, monocropping schemes are really testing the limits of the ecosystems," Olivier De Schutter, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the right to food, told IPS. "They are thirsty in water, fail to regenerate the soils and often result in an overuse of pesticides because the natural defences of nature (thanks to the diversity of plants) are missing."

"Raising food production 70 percent by 2050 is a figure habitually wheeled out," he added.

"Fertiliser and pesticide-driven yield increases, coupled with the ploughing up of rainforests and other remaining carbon sinks, could just about squeeze the extra tonnage of food out of the earth before the self-sustaining capacities of ecosystems are fully saturated."

Any approach of this nature is a race against time that will eventually be lost, and through which we will only accelerate the onset of climate change and its potential to devastate harvests," he said.

In a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council back in 2010, De Schutter presented comprehensive data on the need for agroecology: traditional practices that enhance soil productivity and use beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects to ward off pests rather than relying on fertiliser.

"To date, agroecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80 percent in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116 percent for all African projects," De Schutter said. "Recent projects conducted in 20 African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a period of three to 10 years."

"The tragedy of rushing headlong into a second 'green revolution', where industrial solutions are sought on a global scale, is that other solutions are literally right within our grasp," he told IPS.

Very little capital would be required to promote agroecological practices, but the land grab in Africa, fueled by the rush for carbon reducing alternatives, has been coupled with blanket tax holidays for the multinationals buying up the continents' land, effectively robbing many impoverished states of desperately needed domestic revenues that could be invested in local development schemes, critics say.

For example, the U.S.-based Oakland Institute found that the government of Mozambique is offering generous fiscal incentives to a firm called EmVest Asset Management, which is on the verge of swallowing 2,000 hectares of the country's land for crop and livestock production.

The company's exemption from income tax obligations between 2010 and 2015 represents a loss of public revenue amounting to a million dollars.

In a similar project, the company AgriSol negotiated tax breaks with the government of Tanzania for income earned on a 325,000 hectare plot, for which the agro-giant will likely net an annual profit of 275 million dollars. This sum surpasses the Tanzanian ministry of agriculture's total yearly budget.

A report by the East African NGO Uwazi estimates that "2009/10 tax exemptions in Tanzania amounted to 425 million dollars. That money could have financed 40 percent more resources for education or 72 percent more resources for health between 2009-2010."

Henry Saragih, the general coordinator of the international peasants' network La Via Campesina, which represents 200 million peasants and farmers worldwide, told IPS, "If we look back to the past, we see that one of the primary objectives of colonisation was to find and absorb from the colony all the resources needed by the coloniser. Oil, gas and mining came later. It was first land and food that was stolen."

"Not just in Africa, but also in Indonesia, Malaysia, Honduras and numerous other countries the peasantry and indigenous and local communities are fighting to take back their land and territory," he added.

Comparing the cost of land in Africa with its developed counterparts paints a picture of colonial acquisition. While the U.S. leases its land for 16,000 dollars per hectare for just one year, Ethiopia leased 10,000 hectares of land to the Saudi Star for free over a 60- year period, while Mali leased 100,000 hectares for free over a similar time period.

"Our research found that actors like the World Bank Group (WBG) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) not only push governments to privatise land but also work to change local legal systems of land tenure," Frederic Mousseau, the policy director of the Oakland Institute, told IPS.

In numerous African countries, WBG officials work closely with national governments to quietly overturn the few flimsy laws that peasants and farmers had hitherto held as the only protection of their basic land rights.

Back in 2007, Susan Hume, the country manager for Mozambique, urged the government to reconsider its property rights, speed up VAT refunds for private firms and adopt a "guillotine" on land licenses, adding, "The World Bank would be pleased to assist the government in this process, through Technical Assistance and with help from the Foreign Investment Advisory Service."

"By publishing this research on the relationship between the land grab, climate change, energy policies and investment practices, we're trying to break the "silo" approach to development that looks at each issue independently of the other," Mousseau told IPS.

"We feel it's important to challenge the development paradigm that is 'marketing' and privatising land and we hope this research promotes the return to communally owned land," he said.

Activists echoing these sentiments have teamed up with grassroots networks and coalitions in Durban to draw together these ideas under the banner of ecosocialism, a nascent global movement that is agitating for economic transformation with earth rights as a central guiding principle.

Joel Kovel, co-founder of the U.S.-based Ecosocialist Horizons, told a convergence of hundreds of peasants and farm workers in Durban last week that capitalism began with the enclosure of the commons.

"Examples like the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S. is people's attempt to reclaim these commons and reassert control over the means of production," Kovel told IPS. "Capitalism cannot be reformed, nor can it be voted out of power. It can only be defeated by the creation and proliferation of autonomous zones of eco- socialist transformation and production, which have earth rights at their centre."

"This is what we need to build now. This is what we're building in the U.S. and South Africa, while the U.N. gambles away our collective future," he added.

"People on the streets of South Africa are calling the U.N. talks 'genocidal'," Quincy Saul, author of "Reflections of Crisis: The Great Depression in the 21st Century", told IPS.

Quoting Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Saul added, "By delaying a binding agreement on global warming to 2020, the U.N. is effectively condemning 100 million Africans to death by the end of the century."

"To the majority of people on this continent, the U.N. is no different from Wall Street: it is the one percent," he said.

IPS

Colonial-era practices still influence African food production

by Duncan Alfreds

Agriculture in Africa should be transformed to facilitate food security, but the legacy of colonialism looms large, an activist organisation has said.

"The transformation of agriculture in Africa is an extended version of what happened under colonialism," said Muna Lakhani, Cape Town branch co-ordinator for Earthlife Africa.

Under colonialism, African farmers were required to grow cash crops for export at the expense of subsistence farming and this has had an impact in the current food crisis on the continent, he said.

"They [African farmers] became dependant on selling their crop, rather than growing their own. I think that was the first disconnect in African food production."

As climate change has an impact on poor countries with harsher droughts and major flood events, researchers are working to identify ways that food security could be improved. According to the UN millennium development goal monitor, countries in West Africa particularly struggle with extreme poverty with up to 70% of the population in Nigeria living on less than $1 per day.

Negotiators at the COP 17 climate conference in Durban are inching toward a settlement that may include a further period of commitments for a cap on global carbon emissions, but hopes are slim as top economies like the US and China disagree.

Earthlife Africa said that international trade rules and poor governance limited what developing countries could do to increase food crops for local consumption.

"Given the World Trade Organisation's set of rules for trade, countries have to have a balance of payments story going on, so they need foreign exchange. So they become more dependent on these cash crops to satisfy other needs - often indeed food - which seems quite silly," Lakhani said.

The World Watch Institute blamed part of the problem on governments encouraging monoculture crops and legislation prohibiting urban farming.

"When farmers diversify, they're more resilient to price shocks and they struggle to grow anything on soil that has degraded," said senior researcher Danielle Nierenberg.

She said that global food production chains linked to giant corporations had a devastating impact in poor countries.

"You must remember that the transnational corporations that own a lot of these production facilities wish to trade and they don’t really have an interest in food security. We certainly need to do more urban agriculture and we certainly need to move away from toxins in food."

Some analysts have said that the world is overpopulated and this impacts negatively on food production and distribution, but Lakhani rejected this, saying that the problem of food was one of over consumption.

"The fact of the matter is that 25% of the global population consume 80% of the resources. So what we have is a preponderance of over consumption by the wealthy. Some calculations, globally anyway, show that we will be able to support, sustainably, a population of up to 16 billion people."

"Do the calculation yourself: 75% of the planet live on 20% of the resources. That means 75 times five would be the total number of the population we could easily support - if there was equitable distribution," he said.

The debt crisis plaguing the developed economies may be an indicator of the need for a new system as it exposes the shortcomings inherent in the current capitalist system, Lakhani said.

"The system is indeed creaking at the seems - and that is exactly what is needed to transform the planet."

News24

Erratic rains threaten southern Africa food output

by Olivia Kumwenda

Rainfall patterns in southern Africa are becoming erratic as climate change takes its toll, threatening long-term production of staple and cash crops in the region.

Countries like South Africa, Zambia and Malawi have enjoyed bumper harvests of their staple maize crop in recent years, ensuring food security in a region which has often known hunger.

But farmers, who for centuries have known when to expect summer rains, are now finding planning difficult.
"The rain patterns are just mixed up. You plant with the early rains then all of a sudden there is drought or floods. Sometimes the rains come earlier than expected," said Felix Jumbe, president of the Farmers Union of Malawi.

"Farmers are failing to plan when to plant and it is becoming a big challenge on the farming system," he added.
Malawi is expected to harvest 3.8 million tonnes of maize for the 2010/11 season from 3.5 million tonnes in the previous season and the country has potential to harvest even more.

But the country's 2011/12 maize harvest is seen increasingly under threat given the likelihood of a drought in the first crucial phase of planting, which started in October.

Experts have said as weather patterns change, the outlook for rain-fed agriculture was particularly bleak in southern Africa's Limpopo river basin, which covers parts of Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Farmers in South Africa, the continent's biggest maize producer, suffered a set back during the harvesting of the 2010/11 season crop after unusually wet conditions made it difficult to access farms.

In Zambia, farmers lost close to one million tonnes of the 2010/11 maize harvest after rains came earlier than expected.

"We are talking about a bumper harvest of 3.1 million tonnes but close to a million tonnes has gone to waste because farmers did not anticipate the rains coming early," Calvin Kaleyi, Zambia National Farmers Union spokesman, said.

Early rain is causing problems again and catching Zambia's farmers -- most of whom are peasants -- off guard.

"The first week of October we had very heavy rains, which destroyed the harvest kept in open areas," Kaleyi said.

"Predictability of seasons using indigenous knowledge has become problematic," said Johnson Irungu, director of crops at Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture.

According to aid group Oxfam, which has engaged with farmers in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, small-scale farmers are particularly vulnerable and less resilient to climate change.
"They consistently report hotter conditions year round and changes in the rainy seasons, notably later onset and earlier cessation as well as rain falling in more intense bursts," said Rashmi Mistry, Oxfam's climate change advocacy coordinator.

"These changes shorten growing seasons. Rains during the rainy season are also unpredictable."

Mistry said an Oxfam analysis suggested that climate change could see maize productivity in southern Africa fall by 35 percent in the long term. It also points to reduced yields of sweet potatoes and yams by 13 percent, cassava by 8 percent, and wheat by 22 percent across Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) plans to take the farmers' weather concerns to a United Nations Climate change summit in Durban, which starts on November 28.

SACAU, which was granted observer status at the summit, wants the 190-nation gathering to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work program outlining necessary responses for the sector.

To keep pace with the changing weather patterns, some farmers in the region are migrating to areas they think are cushioned from the effects of climate change, at least for now.

"In Zambia, we have seen farmers shifting from the Southern province to the Central province," said Kaleyi.
He added: "If the farming practices do not change, we are going to see a similar situation that took place in Southern province where trees were cut and the land was exposed to climate change effects."

With the majority of the rural population relying on wood for fuel and others desperate to clear new land for cultivation, deforestation was likely to continue.

Globally, tree felling is also a contributor to climate change because forests are major storing houses of carbon.

"More needs to be done because the trees we plant annually, they end up being burned at the end of the year," Jumbe said.

Mistry said in addition to planting in new locations, other modifications to agricultural practices include changing planting dates, intercropping and diversifying crops.

Forestry experts and climate change negotiators are expected to discuss issues on deforestation and how to help communities adapt to the changing environment on the sidelines of the Durban summit, the South Africa's department of agriculture said.

Reuters

Food security concern as Kenyan farmers switch from maize to coffee

The switch by many farmers in Kenya's Rift Valley province from staple cereals to more profitable coffee is likely to increase the country's dependence on grain imports and possibly affect food security, agricultural experts have warned.

"It is unsafe to use our land for crops with the hopes of being fed by other countries," said James Nyoro, managing director for Africa of the Rockefeller Foundation, which works to "promote the wellbeing of humanity around the world. What if these countries do not harvest excess for us?"

Kenya will have to import 2.3 million tonnes of cereal during the 2011-2012 marketing year to meet demand, a year-on-year increase of 37 percent, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, which estimated domestic harvests of maize - a staple for 90 percent of Kenyans - at 2.5 million tonnes, down 18 percent because of poor weather.

This import dependency and the threat posed by increased coffee growing could be mitigated with the use of improved inputs by cereal growers, Nyoro said. Another food security specialist recommended improving storage conditions of grain after it is harvested, when some 30 percent of production is traditionally lost.

In the meantime, any additional costs accrued by importing will be passed on to consumers.

"There is inflation already, joblessness and low purchasing power for many Kenyans; if food prices go higher than they have in the recent past then the number of people accessing even two meals a day will be much lower," Nyoro said.

"The Rift Valley is the country's granary; it is where most people get their food from. Increased coffee growing could compromise the country's grain basket," said one food security specialist, who asked not to be identified.

"If we lose significant land in the province to coffee, we have to weigh what we gain in the process. If coffee pays better and farmers can [by investing in inputs] improve the yield of maize crop in the acreage they put under maize, perhaps this could be the trade-off," the specialist said, recommending that the government undertake a feasibility study on the implications of expanding coffee production in the Rift Valley.

A draft of Kenya's land-use policy has been submitted to parliament and has yet to be debated for subsequent enactment.

There is little data available about how much former cereal-growing land in the province is now used to produce coffee. But in just one of its 50-odd districts, Trans Nzoia, the area under maize cultivation has fallen by 450 hectares over the last year, according to an agricultural officer there.

Across the province, areas of coffee cultivation grew by an annual 20 percent over the past two years, said Bonface Wekesa, manager of a new milling plant in the town of Eldoret.

"We have distributed over one million seedlings of coffee over the last one year and have even run short as the current demand stands at double what we have distributed to farmers," Wekesa said, explaining that typically 2,200 seedlings would be planted on each hectare of land.

Coffee offers much better returns to farmers at a time when traditional coffee-growing areas in the centre of the country have been greatly reduced by real-estate developments.

In the past year, more than 2,000ha of coffee-growing land in Kiambu County, which neighbours the capital, Nairobi, have been given over to developers.

Farmers in Rift Valley, according to agronomist Zabron Njoroge, "have been growing a lot of cereals to feed the nation while their pockets are left empty. It is their time to fill their pockets with income from the same farms.

"Maybe it's time the government started massive irrigation in arid and semi-arid areas," he said.

Joseph Kurui, a farmer and father of 10 in Tindiret, in Rift Valley's Nandi County, told IRIN: "I have already planted coffee in 14 [5.7ha] out of my 21 acres [8.5ha]. I am waiting for seedlings to plant in six more acres and will only reserve one acre to plant maize for family consumption."

Whereas 0.4047ha of maize earns him about Ksh25,000 (US$280) coffee delivers 10 times that, he said.

"A serious farmers who follows instructions from agronomists can make even more than Sh500,000 per acre," said Wekesa.

Symon Mahungu, a food and agricultural scientist at Egerton University in Nakuru, Rift Valley's provincial capital, said although coffee's growing popularity could reduce cereal production, it would not affect people's access to food, at least in the province.

"If these farmers are not accessing food through selling their maize but are well fed buying food from the proceeds of coffee, then this means they are food secure," Mahungu told IRIN, adding that food security was not a matter of the amount of food produced from farms but, rather, people's ability to access food.

He added: "Maize has been imported even when local farmers have their granaries full; let them [farmers] grow what suits their pockets best."

IRIN

Zambia: exposed maize in national grain reserve soaked by rain

Zambia's Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has said about 46% of the 96, 596 tonnes of maize was soaked by rain on October in its depots in the country's Copperbelt province, but has said that the grain will not go to waste.

The FRA has so far bought maize worth more than K125 billion (1 US$ = 3737.5458 ZMK, 7 October 2011) from farmers on the Copperbelt since the maize buying exercise started in mid July this year.

Provincial marketing coordinator, Simon Phiri said that the maize would not rot because the rains did not persist and that it would dry out within three days of sunshine.

He said the FRA on the Copperbelt had moved 55% of the maize to the three holding depots in Chambishi, Kalulushi and Chingola which had good storage facilities.

Mr Phiri said his office was making efforts to procure more tarpaulin tents to cover the maize because the initial tents the province received had run out due to the huge amount of maize which was bought from the farmers. He said some of the maize was marooned in some areas because transporters were failing to collect it due to the dilapidated state of the roads.

“But we have worked out a special rate for transporters in order to encourage them to go to the areas where the roads are not good so that the maize can be brought to the depots,” he said.

Mr Phiri said the FRA had paid out about K83, 978, 900, 000 billion cash to the farmers in the province and would soon release money to liquidate the balance before the next farming season.

Meanwhile, the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) on the Copperbelt has appealed to FRA to put in place measures that will ensure that the maize harvest is secure.

Copperbelt region coordinator Mr Michael Zulu said it would be unfortunate to allow the bumper maize harvest which had been recorded in the country to go to waste because storage facilities had not been erected. He said the maize should not be allowed to go to waste because even some neighbouring countries were looking to Zambia for importation of surplus from the extra maize harvest.

“I have been to Kanyenda and Bwembelo depots in Mpongwe district, the maize there is soaked and the FRA has no dryers on the Copperbelt to help the maize dry out,” he said.

Times Of Zambia

Poor farmers no threat to U.S. agribusiness; they will become its customers: Howard Buffet

by Howard Buffet

The reasoning would almost be comical if it were not life-threatening to millions of people. James Henry, the Chairman of the USA Maritime coalition, recently expressed concern that poor farmers in less developed countries could threaten revenues of companies like ADM or Liberty Maritime Corp because of a program called Purchase for Progress (P4), initiated by the World Food Programme (WFP).

These industries face a larger threat from increased commodity prices that have slashed U.S. food aid. In 2005, the U.S. provided 4,233,000 metric tons of food assistance; in 2010, it provided 2,914,401 metric tons, a 32 percent reduction. It is simple math; when corn and wheat double in price, the U.S. government buys less to send to disasters such as what is occurring in the Horn of Africa.

For the past three years I have called for a doubling of our country's commitment to food assistance just to stay even with our historical giving levels. Even this falls short of meeting the demand created by drought, floods, disease and earthquakes. With a billion people going to bed hungry every night and another billion on the edge of food insecurity, it is difficult to believe that we will run out of opportunities for Mr. Henry's coalition to meet its revenue targets.

It is also hard to imagine large U.S. companies being threatened by poor, small-scale farmers trying to feed their families and pull themselves out of poverty. P4P is the most innovative program I have seen; it is consistent with a business approach to solving poverty -- something most CEOs of U.S. companies would and should applaud. As a businessman, it is the type of approach that I have searched for to incorporate into our charitable work. To date, it is the largest single investment our Foundation has made -- and it is likely to become the largest overall, second only to our water programs.

P4P provides training, access to credit and market access for poor farmers. The objective is to use WFP's buying power as an interim step. It is expected that farmers will eventually forgo sales to WFP and in the future sell to companies who operate in their country like ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Maseaca or Tiger brands.

Once these farmers learn about contracts, quality requirements and delivery obligations while building a credit rating, they have found a permanent way out of poverty. They can eat three meals a day and send their children to school. After a decade of funding 100 agricultural projects in 37 countries, P4P addresses two key concerns I have as a funder: it provides a permanent exit strategy for donor or aid dollars and it can be executed at scale.

One point that seems to be missing in this discussion is that as countries work their way out of poverty, increase their GDP and overall wealth, they become consumers of goods produced from countries such as the U.S. Their purchasing power increases and they import our products -- creating U.S. jobs and sustaining our industries, not threatening them, as Mr. Henry suggests. The idea that our strategy should be to keep people hungry and malnourished so we can ship them our commodities is absurd.

I have personally seen the successes of P4P and talked with farmers who have had their lives transformed as a result of the program. I realize that stock options and profit are important to many of us in the corporate world, but I do not believe it is an either-or situation, and profit should not ride on the backs of hungry people. I think we can continue to do quite well in spite of these farmers increasing their income by a few hundred dollars a year. Of course, it is easy to say -- neither Mr. Henry nor I have ever suffered from periods of hunger and we put our children to bed every night with full stomachs.

Huffington Post

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