New Hope for African Farmers

The Green Revolution to End Hunger
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only place in the world where there is less food per person year after year. Today, farmers in the region are forced to contend with challenges their parents never dreamed of. As the population grows, they have no choice but to cultivate their land more intensively, which if not done with improved approaches, takes nutrients out of the soil and raises the risks of disease and insect infestations. Add increasingly volatile weather to the equation, and tens of millions of Africans are now living on the edge of starvation.

Starvation used to be a threat for most of the developing world. But starting in the 1940s, a long effort to improve crop yields known as the “Green Revolution” swept through much of Asia and Latin America, giving small farmers there a measure of security for the first time ever. In 1970, Norman Borlaug, a Rockefeller Foundation scientist and a pioneer of this effort, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the Green Revolution. By the 1980s, the Green Revolution had doubled the amount of food produced in the developing world.

The Rockefeller Factor
The Rockefeller and Ford foundations initiated the Green Revolution in partnership with the governments of developing countries. The idea was to take a comprehensive approach to improving agriculture, starting with the seeds farmers plant and ending with the markets where they sell surplus crops. Rockefeller and its partners bred hardier seeds that responded better to fertilizer and irrigation, and they nurtured a group of agriculture experts in developing countries to ensure these new seeds were well-suited to the local soil and climate. Working with the foundation, governments made wise investments in agricultural infrastructure, and together they linked farmers to more and better markets where they could buy improved seeds and fertilizer and sell their surplus.

Rockefeller started the cutting-edge work in Mexico and it soon spread to dozens of countries in Asia and Latin America. Although there were some environmental and social impacts that needed to be addressed, the revolution contributed to significant improvement in the well being of millions of small holder farmers. However, the Green Revolution never reached most of Africa, and today 16 of the 18 most undernourished countries in the world are located on that continent. While much of the world has benefited from agricultural innovation, three-quarters of smallholder farmers in Africa still use the same unimproved seeds they used 50 years ago and still don’t have access to improved soil fertility practices. Science has passed them by completely.

Africa’s Overdue Revolution
On September 12, 2006, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new partnership to help Africa start its own Green Revolution. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) will begin with a $150 million commitment focused on what agricultural scientists call seed systems: developing appropriate seeds to attain the best yields in the diverse environments of Africa and working to make sure these high-quality seeds are delivered to farmers who need them most.

Eventually, the combination of Rockefeller and Gates resources and Rockefeller’s years of experience will address the whole range of issues that has made agricultural development such a challenge in Africa. The partnership’s first initiative will focus on:

1. Breeding better crops that are adapted to the variety of local conditions in Africa. The goal is to develop 100 new varieties in five years.
   
   
2. Training African breeders and agricultural scientists who can spearhead this process in the future.
   
   
3. Guaranteeing reliable ways to get high-quality, locally adapted seeds into the hands of small farmers, through seed companies, public organizations, community organizations, and a network of 10,000 agro-dealers, the small merchants largely responsible for providing supplies and knowledge to Africa’s farmers.

The Ultimate Goal
Why didn’t Africa have a Green Revolution? First, the continent’s agriculture is much more diverse than that of Asia or Latin America. In India, for example, developing a few new varieties of rice and wheat radically improved the productivity of much of that country’s agricultural sector. For a Green Revolution in Africa, however, scientists will need to develop improved varieties for at least 10 different staple crops, including maize, cassava, sorghum, and millet.

In addition, Africa’s lack of infrastructure severely limits farmers’ access to improved seeds and to the markets they need to sell their crops and buy their farm supplies. As early as the 1950s, India’s transportation networks were significantly better than Africa’s are today. Moreover, African governments have yet to make the kinds of investments in agriculture that are necessary for radically better yields. For example, irrigation projects are usually sponsored at least in part by governments, but only two percent of the agricultural land in Africa is irrigated. In India, that figure is closer to 85 percent.

Now it’s Africa’s turn. This is only the beginning of the continent’s Green Revolution. The end goal is that within 20 years, farmers will double or even triple their yields and sell the surplus at market for the income they need to invest in health, education, housing, and other needs. This is a vision of a new Africa, where farmers aren’t threatened with hunger and poverty, where people can look toward the future with promise.