Special Report
Is Africa selling out its farmers?
12 November 2009 | by Barry Malone and Ed Cropley
* African governments want big foreign-run farms
* Bill Gates culturing grassroots Green Revolution
* 'Land grab,' environmental, GM concerns abound
BAKO, Ethiopia/JOHANNESBURG, Nov 12 (Reuters) - For centuries,
farmers like Berhanu Gudina have eked out a living in Ethiopia's central
lowlands, tending tiny plots of maize, wheat or barley amid the vastness
of the lush green plains.
Now, they find themselves working cheek by jowl with high-tech
commercial farms stretching over thousands of hectares tilled by state-
of-the-art tractors -- and owned and operated by foreigners.
With memories of Ethiopia's devastating 1984 famine still fresh in the
minds of its leaders, the government has been enticing well-heeled
foreigners to invest in the nation's underperforming agriculture sector.
It is part of an economic development push they say will help the Horn
of Africa nation ensure it has enough food for its 80 million people.
"Now we see Indians coming, Chinese coming. Before, we were just
Ethiopian," 54-year-old Gudina said in Bako, a small farming town 280
km (170 miles) west of Addis Ababa. "What do they want here? The
same as the British in Kenya? To steal everything? Our government is
selling our country to the Asians so they can make money for
themselves."
Xenophobia aside, a number of organizations -- including the foundation
started by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates -- argue that Africa should
support its own farmers.
"Instead of African countries giving away their best lands, they should
invest in their own farmers," said Akin Adesina, vice president of the
Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
"What's needed is a small-holder, farmer-based revolution. African land
should not be up for garage sale."
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Both sides of the debate agree on this much: a stark reality -- underlined
by last year's food price crisis -- looms large over Ethiopia and beyond.
The world is in danger of running out of food.
By 2050, when its population is likely to be more than 9 billion, up from
6 billion now, the world's food production needs to increase by 70
percent, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation.
In Africa, which for a variety of reasons was bypassed by the Green
Revolution that transformed India and China in the 1960s and 1970s,
the numbers are even more bleak. The continent's population is set to
double from 1 billion now.
In all, the FAO says, feeding those extra mouths is going to take $83
billion in investment every year for the next four decades, increasing
both the amount of cultivated land and how much it produces. The
estimated investment for Africa alone is $11 billion a year.
For deeply impoverished Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa's second-most
populous nation after Nigeria, even a fraction of those sums is
unthinkable.
Yet with 111 million hectares -- nearly twice the area of Texas -- within
its borders, the answer, in the government's eyes, is simple: Lease
'spare' land to wealthy outsiders to get them to grow the food. One
unfortunate consequence of that thinking is Gudina and his little plot of
maize are painted as part of the problem, rather than a potential solution.
"The small-scale farmers are not producing the quality they should,
because they don't have the technology," said Esayas Kebede, head of
the Agricultural Investment Agency, a body founded only in February
but already talking about offering foreign farmers 3 million hectares in
the next two years.
"There are 12 million households in Ethiopia. We can't afford to give
new technology to all of them," he said, sitting in an office adorned with
maps showing possible sites for commercial farms.
Indian agro-conglomerate Karuturi Global (KART.BO: Quote, Profile,
Research, Stock Buzz), whose involvement in Ethiopia so far has been
exporting cut-flowers to Europe, has taken the hint, branching out into
food production with a sprawling maize farm in Bako. Unlike with
similar land deals elsewhere in Africa, the company insists crops will be
exported only after demand is met in Ethiopia -- where 6.2 million
people are said to be in need of emergency food aid because of poor
seasonal rains.
"Our main aim is to feed the Ethiopian people," Karuturi's Ethiopia
general manager, Hanumatha Rao, told Reuters, sitting under an awning
at the Bako farm as hundreds of labourers harvested maize in the fields
stretching up nearby hillsides. "Whatever we produce will go to the
stomachs of the Ethiopian people before it goes to the international
market."
ANOTHER AFRICAN REVOLUTION
While many governments have been busy courting foreigners, in most
cases from Asia or the Middle East, to increase Africa's food output,
small farmers like Gudina are not totally without friends.
An initiative backed by the Melinda and Bill Gates and Rockefeller
foundations is aiming to kick-start an African Green Revolution,
carefully avoiding the pitfalls that had engulfed previous such attempts.
In particular, Africa boasts a dazzling array of soil types, climates and
crops that have defied the one-size-fits-all solution of better seed,
fertilizer and irrigation that worked in Asia half a century ago.
Its perennial tendency to corruption and official incompetence has also
played its part in keeping average grain yields on the continent at just
1.2 tonnes per hectare, compared with 3.5 tonnes in Europe and 5.5
tonnes in the United States.
AGRA's Adesina says sub-Saharan governments are slowly realising the
importance of small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the
region's population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. But he
urges governments to make good on a pledge six years ago to raise
farm spending to 10 percent of their national budgets.
For its part, AGRA is pouring money into research institutes from
Burkina Faso in the west to Tanzania in the east to breed higher yielding
and more drought- and pest-resistant strains of everything from maize
and cassava to sorghum and sweet potato.
Is Africa selling out its farmers?
12 November 2009 | by Barry Malone and Ed Cropley
* African governments want big foreign-run farms
* Bill Gates culturing grassroots Green Revolution
* 'Land grab,' environmental, GM concerns abound
BAKO, Ethiopia/JOHANNESBURG, Nov 12 (Reuters) - For centuries,
farmers like Berhanu Gudina have eked out a living in Ethiopia's central
lowlands, tending tiny plots of maize, wheat or barley amid the vastness
of the lush green plains.
Now, they find themselves working cheek by jowl with high-tech
commercial farms stretching over thousands of hectares tilled by state-
of-the-art tractors -- and owned and operated by foreigners.
With memories of Ethiopia's devastating 1984 famine still fresh in the
minds of its leaders, the government has been enticing well-heeled
foreigners to invest in the nation's underperforming agriculture sector.
It is part of an economic development push they say will help the Horn
of Africa nation ensure it has enough food for its 80 million people.
- Many small Ethopian
farmers do not share
their leaders'
enthusiasm for the
policy, eyeing the
outsiders with a
suspicion that has
crept across Africa as
millions of hectares
have been placed, with
varying degrees of
"Now we see Indians coming, Chinese coming. Before, we were just
Ethiopian," 54-year-old Gudina said in Bako, a small farming town 280
km (170 miles) west of Addis Ababa. "What do they want here? The
same as the British in Kenya? To steal everything? Our government is
selling our country to the Asians so they can make money for
themselves."
Xenophobia aside, a number of organizations -- including the foundation
started by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates -- argue that Africa should
support its own farmers.
"Instead of African countries giving away their best lands, they should
invest in their own farmers," said Akin Adesina, vice president of the
Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
"What's needed is a small-holder, farmer-based revolution. African land
should not be up for garage sale."
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Both sides of the debate agree on this much: a stark reality -- underlined
by last year's food price crisis -- looms large over Ethiopia and beyond.
The world is in danger of running out of food.
By 2050, when its population is likely to be more than 9 billion, up from
6 billion now, the world's food production needs to increase by 70
percent, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation.
In Africa, which for a variety of reasons was bypassed by the Green
Revolution that transformed India and China in the 1960s and 1970s,
the numbers are even more bleak. The continent's population is set to
double from 1 billion now.
In all, the FAO says, feeding those extra mouths is going to take $83
billion in investment every year for the next four decades, increasing
both the amount of cultivated land and how much it produces. The
estimated investment for Africa alone is $11 billion a year.
For deeply impoverished Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa's second-most
populous nation after Nigeria, even a fraction of those sums is
unthinkable.
Yet with 111 million hectares -- nearly twice the area of Texas -- within
its borders, the answer, in the government's eyes, is simple: Lease
'spare' land to wealthy outsiders to get them to grow the food. One
unfortunate consequence of that thinking is Gudina and his little plot of
maize are painted as part of the problem, rather than a potential solution.
"The small-scale farmers are not producing the quality they should,
because they don't have the technology," said Esayas Kebede, head of
the Agricultural Investment Agency, a body founded only in February
but already talking about offering foreign farmers 3 million hectares in
the next two years.
"There are 12 million households in Ethiopia. We can't afford to give
new technology to all of them," he said, sitting in an office adorned with
maps showing possible sites for commercial farms.
Indian agro-conglomerate Karuturi Global (KART.BO: Quote, Profile,
Research, Stock Buzz), whose involvement in Ethiopia so far has been
exporting cut-flowers to Europe, has taken the hint, branching out into
food production with a sprawling maize farm in Bako. Unlike with
similar land deals elsewhere in Africa, the company insists crops will be
exported only after demand is met in Ethiopia -- where 6.2 million
people are said to be in need of emergency food aid because of poor
seasonal rains.
"Our main aim is to feed the Ethiopian people," Karuturi's Ethiopia
general manager, Hanumatha Rao, told Reuters, sitting under an awning
at the Bako farm as hundreds of labourers harvested maize in the fields
stretching up nearby hillsides. "Whatever we produce will go to the
stomachs of the Ethiopian people before it goes to the international
market."
ANOTHER AFRICAN REVOLUTION
While many governments have been busy courting foreigners, in most
cases from Asia or the Middle East, to increase Africa's food output,
small farmers like Gudina are not totally without friends.
An initiative backed by the Melinda and Bill Gates and Rockefeller
foundations is aiming to kick-start an African Green Revolution,
carefully avoiding the pitfalls that had engulfed previous such attempts.
In particular, Africa boasts a dazzling array of soil types, climates and
crops that have defied the one-size-fits-all solution of better seed,
fertilizer and irrigation that worked in Asia half a century ago.
Its perennial tendency to corruption and official incompetence has also
played its part in keeping average grain yields on the continent at just
1.2 tonnes per hectare, compared with 3.5 tonnes in Europe and 5.5
tonnes in the United States.
AGRA's Adesina says sub-Saharan governments are slowly realising the
importance of small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the
region's population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. But he
urges governments to make good on a pledge six years ago to raise
farm spending to 10 percent of their national budgets.
For its part, AGRA is pouring money into research institutes from
Burkina Faso in the west to Tanzania in the east to breed higher yielding
and more drought- and pest-resistant strains of everything from maize
and cassava to sorghum and sweet potato.
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