An uphill battle is being waged in the grain fields south of the Sahara. Also in regional forums, in research centers and in social networks. Its prey is nothing but sustainability. And victory happens not so much (although the ultimate goal is) in generalizing sustainable farming practices, whatever those ambitions mean, as in enforcing a story about what they imply. The well-established and ambiguous concept of sustainability in its agricultural aspect has two core dimensions: environmental impact and food supply. Meanwhile, the dialectical struggle echoes in the vast palm plantations that stretch east of Ghana. Or in the tea trees that dot the landscape of Kericho County in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Also in the thousands of organic gardens and smallholder farms scattered across rural Africa.
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In this war of meanings, two organizations call the shots. They have similar names: AGRA and AFSA. The first was launched in 2006 as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. After revising its branding last year, it now operates solely under an acronym, with no reference to the green revolution it advocated in its early days. AGRA is funded by a number of donors including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His vision puts efficiency first, and on the horizon he sees a qualitative leap in sub-Saharan Africa’s poor agricultural yields. Aggie Asiimwe, vice president for program innovation at AGRA, makes it clear that her organization “follows the mandate of the African Union to work towards a dual or hybrid model”. [entre lo orgánico y lo convencional] sustainable agricultural practices. For them, sustainability in agriculture means “protecting the environment”, which also includes stopping the expansion of cultivated areas into wetlands, forests and other protected areas. And also to ensure “a sufficient amount of nutrients” in the plantations. Asiimwe sums up AGRA’s recipe into a mantra slogan: “Regenerate and intensify at the same time.”
“There are people who talk without knowing it. I invite you to come to a small plantation and tell the African farmer to use manure as fertilizer if he doesn’t even have animals. Or that processes the waste from metropolitan areas 300 kilometers away into compost.”
Aggie Asiimwe, Vice President of Program Innovation at AGRA
On the other hand, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa defines itself as “the largest civil society movement on the continent”. AFSA is a conglomerate of farmer collectives, NGOs, small farmers and indigenous groups. Embrace the organic orthodoxy, with no exceptions to the use of fertilizers or synthetic pesticides. These only have one place, emphasizes their general coordinator, Million Belay, “during the transition period, during the floors.” [tratados hasta entonces con productos agroquímicos] they regenerate and reclaim their natural nutrients.” AFSA introduces another variable into the equation, aiming to sell the best agro-sustainable formula for this vast region. Organic farming, he emphasizes, would eliminate Africa’s high dependence on foreign fertilizers in one fell swoop. A phenomenon that brought the war in Ukraine to light in all its severity. In this case, sustainability would mean independence from external fluctuations.
The shadow of hunger always looms large in debates about the future of agriculture in Africa. During a video conference interview, Asiimwe, head of AGRA, shares a graph showing projected population growth for the continent. “In 2030 we will have 1,300 million inhabitants in Africa and the reality is that we are currently unable to feed our population,” he explains. And using another graphic, he makes it clear that African fields produce an average of two tons per hectare and year. “As soon as there are epidemics or droughts, the yield in many countries falls below the subsistence level. Our goal is to reach three tons, a quantity that is still a long way from the six or seven that countries like the US have,” he says. According to Asiimwe, the problem with inorganic fertilizers in Africa “is not in their use, but in their misuse and waste due to lack of training”.
Of AFSA, Belay replies forcefully to those who caricature organic farming as a breeding ground for socioeconomic fragility: “There is ample scientific evidence of its potential to feed Africa.” The AFSA website reserves a special section for studies that theoretically confirm the absolute viability of organic matter. Its main coordinator highlights an analysis carried out in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, a fertile area now unfortunately known for the current civil war. The experiment compared the yield of synthetically and organically fertilized plants. “The first ones did better in the early years, but then they started showing signs of exhaustion. Then the second ones – for which compost was used – began to work better on all types of grain: corn, beans, wheat…”, he assures.
A United Nations publication released in 2008 debunked (in its conclusions) two “myths” about organic farming on the continent: that it prevents yield improvement and that it poses a serious threat to food security. In a column published last year, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, put the number of millions of Africans suffering from nutritional deficiencies at 281. According to the FAO, this should not prevent deep systemic change. Their Southern Africa coordinator, Patrice Talla, believes the continent “needs to gradually go organic”. And he explains why: “Intensive farming has been shown to be one of the main causes of biodiversity loss and that the use of pesticides has a significant impact on farmer health.”
AFSA’s General Coordinator, Million Belay, replies forcefully to those who caricature organic farming as a breeding ground for socioeconomic fragility: “There is ample scientific evidence of its potential to feed Africa.”
For Talla, two strategies will enable it to boost sub-Saharan organic production. The first is to “create economies of scale that counteract market segregation”. Second, for the massive application of technological innovations. According to Talla, the interaction of both measures will lead to a significant increase in “efficiency” and thus to a drop in prices. For his part, the FAO Southern Africa Coordinator cited Zimbabwe as an example of good practice. More than 300,000 farm workers are already working – apparently with excellent results – within the government’s conservation agriculture framework. A format similar to organic farming, but with even less intervention in tillage (e.g. prohibits tillage by machine).
“Organic farming is very, very expensive,” Asiimwe recalls, beaming when asked about voices outside of Africa criticizing AGRA’s supposedly anti-ecological postulates. “There are people who talk without knowing it. I invite you to come to a small plantation and tell the African farmer to use manure as fertilizer if he doesn’t even have animals. Or use the waste from city centers 300 kilometers away for composting,” he demands.
For Belay, it is precisely the lack of funding that is holding back the breakthrough and cost reduction in organic fruit cultivation. In Africa and around the world. A 2020 report by CIDSE (a Catholic NGO) showed that of European funding allocated to FAO or World Food Program agricultural projects, those with an organic accent did not reach 3% of the total.
In another twist on the diffuse idea of agricultural sustainability, another 2019 study pointed to the purely human factor. That is, on the living conditions of farmers. Its author, Nassib Mugwanya, concluded that organic farming in Africa inadvertently promotes the status quo: sunrise to sunset days and greater obstacles to escaping the cycle of poverty. Even a positive review of organic initiatives in West Africa acknowledged that “industrial farming tends to reduce workloads”. And that this poses a major challenge in convincing farmers of the benefits of an agroecological switch. Not even this last term – hitherto almost synonymous with biological methods – has escaped history’s struggle over sub-Saharan agriculture. AGRA and its satellite companies have started to take it over. What does agroecology mean to this organization? “Fundamentally sustainable cultivation methods,” Asiimwe replies. The debate has only just begun.
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