Irrigated land in Africa still only accounts for 6% of total cultivated land. The Green Revolution would look to change that, and it has steadily developed increasing support, especially within Africa itself. This gives it the required political momentum, but does not guarantee that it will be beneficial for most Africans, and nor does it guarantee that African nations will resist opportunities for even greater intensification. Indeed, there are already countries in Africa experiencing an intensification in agriculture.
The Green Revolution proposes transforming smallholder agriculture with improved technologies, better seeds, increased access to credit etc. The vision is for an African-centric, African-led initiative that guides agriculture in Africa. By removing foreign, for-profit, large scale actors that "take over" land, the Green Revolution attempts to better the chances of sustainable development. As the people working on and living the land are also the ones that make the decisions for it. This may sound delightfully idyllic, but a target should be.
This article from the Harvard Business Review is optimistic of the opportunities to come. Highlighting the 'inclusive growth' of current agricultural development in Africa, the article notes that the African Development Bank has grown to surpass the World Bank in 2008 as the biggest lender to Africa. The inclusive growth, a key point of the African Green Revolution video I posted, would see far greater returns for Africa than a simple intensification of agriculture without an overarching plan for the resultant revenue and goods. This would establish a better balance of returns for African countries and people than has been the case in previous decades (as discussed in previous posts).
Africa presents key issues that were not necessarily present in the same way in previous Green Revolutions however. Donald Larson of the World Bank contends that Africa presents a far more heterogeneous agricultural profile than Asia, where there were only two principle crops - rice and wheat. This complexity would undoubtedly make it harder to coordinate agricultural practices and development. Further, the groundwater profile of Africa is incomplete (MacDonald et al., 2013), and this may limit the scale or the sustainability of intensive agriculture.
In parts of Northern Africa, the groundwater dates back thousands of years, and so abstraction of water from those aquifers should be treated more akin to 'mining' the fossil water. Other parts of Africa however have decadal recharge timescales, and can be more easily monitored to track (over)abstraction. However, as Africa's population continues to increase, and urbanisation and increased living standards inevitably demand more water, the loss of large amounts of groundwater to intensive agriculture may present a serious problem. These groundwater reserves can act as 'buffers' against climatic variance (Calow et al., 2010), which is only expected to increase: and so increased stress on groundwater reserves would carry greater risk of water shortages, whilst perversely fuelling greater growth and thus demand.
Agriculture around the world is supported by state intervention, from EU and US subsidies to minimum support prices in India. There is consistent pressure to drive prices down, and as the purchasers of this food can pick from nations around the world, each country reliant on agriculture is forced to keep prices aggressively low. Kaplinsky (2005) highlights these 'declining terms of trade' for producers in the global supply chain. Africa is constantly picked out as an area of "under utilisation", a "final frontier" for agriculture. Once/If agriculture is intensified on a large scale across Africa, and the boom is over, might businesses flee before African economies have the chance to move on from agriculture?
There are many other risks and questions raised when allowing so much of the African economy to be linked to the Green Revolution. The manufacturing, services and technology sectors are all viewed in higher regard (for good reason) than agriculture. Would establishing Africa as the premier agricultural hub do much to elevate Africa to the levels of developing and developed parts of the world? Does this continue to hold Africa on the lower rungs of the global economy? This is touted as the necessary future of agriculture; could Africa adopt such an advanced image of agriculture with smallholder farmers, and if so, could it retain the necessary wealth to sustain inclusive growth, or would this hand power back to the developed nations? All of these questions require speculation, and there is little data, quantitative or qualitative, to make such predictions about the future.
Agriculture is by no means risk-free, but nor does it need to be. Intensive farming has obvious connotations of unsustainable farming, but the Green Revolution for Africa proposes a model where smallholder farmers are enabled and empowered. There is not the forced, intense pressure of intensive farming, with necessary overuse of water reserves. And if the gains from the Green Revolution can be internalised, it would help to provide some shelter to the continent from excessive foreign influence. There is indeed a vision of inclusive development and responsible water management that can be met by agriculture.
The Green Revolution proposes transforming smallholder agriculture with improved technologies, better seeds, increased access to credit etc. The vision is for an African-centric, African-led initiative that guides agriculture in Africa. By removing foreign, for-profit, large scale actors that "take over" land, the Green Revolution attempts to better the chances of sustainable development. As the people working on and living the land are also the ones that make the decisions for it. This may sound delightfully idyllic, but a target should be.
This article from the Harvard Business Review is optimistic of the opportunities to come. Highlighting the 'inclusive growth' of current agricultural development in Africa, the article notes that the African Development Bank has grown to surpass the World Bank in 2008 as the biggest lender to Africa. The inclusive growth, a key point of the African Green Revolution video I posted, would see far greater returns for Africa than a simple intensification of agriculture without an overarching plan for the resultant revenue and goods. This would establish a better balance of returns for African countries and people than has been the case in previous decades (as discussed in previous posts).
Africa presents key issues that were not necessarily present in the same way in previous Green Revolutions however. Donald Larson of the World Bank contends that Africa presents a far more heterogeneous agricultural profile than Asia, where there were only two principle crops - rice and wheat. This complexity would undoubtedly make it harder to coordinate agricultural practices and development. Further, the groundwater profile of Africa is incomplete (MacDonald et al., 2013), and this may limit the scale or the sustainability of intensive agriculture.
In parts of Northern Africa, the groundwater dates back thousands of years, and so abstraction of water from those aquifers should be treated more akin to 'mining' the fossil water. Other parts of Africa however have decadal recharge timescales, and can be more easily monitored to track (over)abstraction. However, as Africa's population continues to increase, and urbanisation and increased living standards inevitably demand more water, the loss of large amounts of groundwater to intensive agriculture may present a serious problem. These groundwater reserves can act as 'buffers' against climatic variance (Calow et al., 2010), which is only expected to increase: and so increased stress on groundwater reserves would carry greater risk of water shortages, whilst perversely fuelling greater growth and thus demand.
Agriculture around the world is supported by state intervention, from EU and US subsidies to minimum support prices in India. There is consistent pressure to drive prices down, and as the purchasers of this food can pick from nations around the world, each country reliant on agriculture is forced to keep prices aggressively low. Kaplinsky (2005) highlights these 'declining terms of trade' for producers in the global supply chain. Africa is constantly picked out as an area of "under utilisation", a "final frontier" for agriculture. Once/If agriculture is intensified on a large scale across Africa, and the boom is over, might businesses flee before African economies have the chance to move on from agriculture?
There are many other risks and questions raised when allowing so much of the African economy to be linked to the Green Revolution. The manufacturing, services and technology sectors are all viewed in higher regard (for good reason) than agriculture. Would establishing Africa as the premier agricultural hub do much to elevate Africa to the levels of developing and developed parts of the world? Does this continue to hold Africa on the lower rungs of the global economy? This is touted as the necessary future of agriculture; could Africa adopt such an advanced image of agriculture with smallholder farmers, and if so, could it retain the necessary wealth to sustain inclusive growth, or would this hand power back to the developed nations? All of these questions require speculation, and there is little data, quantitative or qualitative, to make such predictions about the future.
Agriculture is by no means risk-free, but nor does it need to be. Intensive farming has obvious connotations of unsustainable farming, but the Green Revolution for Africa proposes a model where smallholder farmers are enabled and empowered. There is not the forced, intense pressure of intensive farming, with necessary overuse of water reserves. And if the gains from the Green Revolution can be internalised, it would help to provide some shelter to the continent from excessive foreign influence. There is indeed a vision of inclusive development and responsible water management that can be met by agriculture.
Next week I'll be looking at an example of smallholder agriculture from Panjab. It provides an example of an agrarian economy that already has the land titling that is to be expected in Africa in the future.
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