1. Rebranding of AGRA Is a Confession of Failure - African VOICES

ByMisheck Nyirongo

Farmers, civil society and faith leaders of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa recognise the double rebranding of the Green Revolution as an admission of failure, a cynical distraction, and reject the new strategy offered by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

The double rebrand sees the name of the African Green Revolution Forum changing to "Africa's Food Systems Forum". At the same time, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa now insists that it will be known only by its acronym AGRA, without the words “green revolution” in its name. Both organs of the Green Revolution are attempting to distance themselves from the failed industrial agriculture project while essentially continuing with business as usual.

Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)’s Communications Officer, Kirubel Teshome said in a press statement recently that the civil society organisations and faith leaders were quick to denounce the cosmetic change. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa soundly rejects AGRA's new strategy, announced last month, which promises a continuation of many of the same failing approaches. 

“AGRA has sorely disappointed Africans suffering the effects of the climate crisis. Africa must shift away from dependency on imported food and fossil fuel technologies and reduce vulnerability to historical and current crises generated outside Africa's shores, including climate change, conflicts, pandemics and neo-colonialism,” Kirubel Teshome, AFSA’s Communications Officer added. 

An independent expert evaluations released by AGRA, after considerable pressure, comprehensively substantiate the findings of the study ‘False Promises’ confirms that Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)’s approach has failed and underscore the fact that there is no basis for the further cooperation of African governments and those from elsewhere, with AGRA either financially or politically; there was also lack of accountability in this billion-dollar project.

The African agroecological voices, are telling their own narratives. "AGRA is just putting new labels on the failed policies of the past," said Anne Main a of the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya, "After 16 years and one billion dollars, we say AGRA's time is up! Donors should pull the plug on AGRA."

"We demand not are branding of AGRA, and an end to funding harmful green revolution programs," said Gabriel Manyangadze of Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute. "What we need now is a Green Restoration." 

"AGRA propagates this idea that African farmers don't produce enough food because they don't use enough chemical fertilisers," said AFSA General Coordinator, Dr. Million Belay. "This might be true for some farmers till they transition to agroecology; the implication is that if we pump soils and plants with agrochemicals, we will grow more food. But we know what that means in terms of polluting the soil, making farmers dependent on external inputs, compromising the health of farmers and consumers, robbing farmers their right to food, and vulnerability to climate change."

A Kenyan farmer Ferdinand Wafula was emphatic in his plea, "We urge policymakers, governments, and donors to provide more funding to agroecology, which offers clear solutions to nutrition challenges, the climate crisis and escalating food prices." The food and climate crises compel Africa to turn away from Green Revolution practices that undermine small-scale farmers' ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.

And the Zambian agroecology advocate and Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity(ZAAB) National Coordinator, Muthinta Nketani said recently during the media engagement, “AGRA reinforces very expensive way of producing food which has potential to make our traditional seeds and foods disappear forever from our diets (due to its mono-cultural nature. These foods contribute greatly to Household food and nutrition security.”

Ms. Muthinta Nketani further said, “AGRA contributes greatly to environmental degradation and risks human health (depletes soils, contributes to biodiversity loss due to intensive use of chemicals both selective and non-selective, pollution of water bodies and other natural resources.”

The loss of crop diversity reduces nutrition and not only undermines the ability of house holds to cope with external shocks, but also diminishes social cohesion, knowledge, leads to increased reliance on the cash economy and reduces the ecological resilience of farming systems.

And a study conducted by Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) - Zambia in 2019/20established that, “The mono-cultural nature of the Green Revolution model(supported maize and soya beans mainly) has led to loss of bio-diversity, leaving farmers vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”

An analysis of AGRA’s New Five-Year Strategy for 2023 -2027, with its $550 million budget, shows that the organisation is doubling down on its efforts to promote commercial seeds and fossil-fuel-based fertilisers and pesticides and to enact policy reforms that threaten peasant seed systems and the right to food. The strategy makes no commitment to improved yields, incomes, or food security for small-scale farming households. 

AGRA intends to build strong, efficient and robust private sector led seeds systems that will give farmers timely and affordable access to appropriate, quality varieties with traits for better yields and pest and disease tolerance. “AGRA will strengthen national seed systems by enhancing government and private sector support for seeds and building a stronger seed policy and regulatory frame work,” AGRA’s Five-Year Strategy indicates.

Furthermore, AGRA’s Five-Year Strategy, wants to see, “A committed, capable state(government) with the right policies, programs, and incentives is a critical scaling partner for inclusive agricultural transformation and helps to attract private sector investment.” This continued industrial model of agriculture, driven by the interests of multinational private seed companies, is premised on the privatisation of seed, limiting farmers’ rights to save and share seed.

AGRA’s Five-Year Strategy clearly shows that the small-scale farmers will again be left behind, as the control of seed, is still entrusted in the hands of the private seed sector, criminalising the small-scale farmers with laws that squeeze the indigenous seed of out of ecological agricultural space.

A year ago, 200 organisations signed on to an AFSA letter demanding that donors withdraw support from AGRA. Some of AGRA's donors are reducing their contributions, leaving the lame-duck AGRA project as a de facto wholly owned subsidiary of its primary funder, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which quickly pledged $200 million for AGRA’s five-year plan.

Founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations; and registered in the US, launched in 2006, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was unsuccessful in achieving its goals of doubling agricultural yields and the incomes of 30 million small-scale food producer households thereby halving both hunger and poverty in 20 African countries by 2020.

In a study ‘False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)’, published in July 2020, five organisations from Germany, as well as five others from Mali, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, conclude that, based on investigations by researcher Timothy Wise and his team from Tufts University in the US, AGRA notably failed to achieve its goals, but also has fallen far short of them.

Further, AGRA’s claimed expertise in fighting hunger and its leadership role, such as currently at the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), is not warranted. AGRA neither represents the interests of small-scale food producers, nor has its approach with the Green Revolution’s technology package reduced hunger or poverty in its focus countries in Africa.

In this context, AFSA continues to call on donors and African governments to shift funding away from a Green Revolution strategy and towards proven agroecological alternatives. Agroecology is a people-centered system of sustainable agriculture and a social justice movement driven by local farmers and other food producers to maintain power over their local food systems, protect their livelihoods and communities, and def end every African's right to nutritious and diverse food.

Uniting generations of indigenous knowledge, farmer-driven and science-based innovation, and an ecosystem's natural processes, agroecological food systems can adapt to and help solve the climate crisis. Farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples and local communities use agroecology to steward their land sustainably, produce nourishing food that celebrates cultural heritage, and strengthen local markets and economies.

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