by Aude Lorriaux           

Alain de Janvry is a French professor of Agricultural & Resource Economics. Teaching and researching at the University of California at Berkeley, at the high-level expert forum in Rome in October he called for a new paradigm of agriculture, that would push it forward for development, and would consider the roles of poverty, gender, and environment.

Africa Reporting Project : You mentioned a new paradigm in the development of agriculture. What does that mean?

Alain de Janvry : Basically what it says is that agriculture has many functions to play in development. You want to use agriculture not only for growth but you want to use it also for poverty reduction, to manage the environment, to reduce food insecurity, and exposure to shock. Agriculture has all those functions to play and you need to look at what you do with agriculture. How you produce food? Who is producing the food? Who is going to access to the food? You need to answer all those questions in order to jointly try to achieve all of those different goals of development.

ARP : What would be the agriculture of tomorrow? What should we developp?

ADJ : Clearly we have to raise yields and it should be done in an environmental and sustainable fashion. The opposition between agro-ecology and GMO is a false dichotomy. You can use GMOs and put them into agro-ecological farming systems which incorporate scientific technology. I don’t believe that farmers can do alone. I think there’s a very important role for science. Unfortunately, there’s a big lag in adoption of avalaible technology. Yet, it’s perfectly within reach. Science should include what the genetic progress has to offer instead of staying with the old tools of the plant breeders who do plant selection without using GMO’s. The worst you can do is to prevent investment into the science that  molecular biotechnology provides. But it has to be environmentally sustainable and it has to be accessible to small farmers in a social manner.

ARP : Why did the first Green Revolution, that allowed yields to be raised in India, not work for Africa ?

ADJ : The first reason is neglect.  The policies were bad policies in the sense of price incentive; public budget and foreign aid also didn’t support agriculture. There’s still a lack of investment in the agricultural research. The second reason is that in Asia you had already the public goods and infrastructure but in Africa you have to build everything at the same time. So it requires a kind of inter- or multi-sectors approach that would in the same time manage agriculture and health and public services. You need to create a complementarity accross sectors.

And also one of the difficulties is, because of the specificity and variety, you need local governements and therefore, decentralization. Many countries have been decentralizing but it’s still something that is not satisfying the people. Burkina Faso has been decentralizing but the local governments still would need to invest more in agriculture.

There has not been enough attention given to agriculture, not enough investment. The growth in agriculture consequently has only been the area expansion. Area, yet, is running out. Per capita area where people are tends to decline. There are some areas of course in Africa , but it’s not where people are. Actually, there are areas where agriculture could be eventually put in production but there would need to be some investments to link them to the markets, which is what the foreigners are looking forward to do.

China, Korea, and India are looking into accessing those lands in Africa. They could put in those infrastructures and bring some water control.

It’s the only region in the world where agriculture is laging so badly : yields are stagnant, food production per capita is really low.  Otherwise the specificity of the African agriculture is that it’s 90% rain-fed, as opposed to Asian agriculture which is mostly irrigated. As a result you have a much more complex system. Anything that has to do with rain-fed agriculture is much more complex. What was done in the Philippines with rice or in Mexico with corn could relatively easily translated to India and China. But in Africa the farming system is different. In Africa you don’t only have cereals, you have cassava, millet, potato, teff.  So from the beginning it’s a much more complex situation.

ARP : Is the rain-fed agriculture cultural or is it mainly because of the lack of investments?

ADJ : Obviously it’s because of the lack of investments but the question is why haven’t there been more investments. One of the issues which is important in that sense is that most of Africa is low population density. Places like the delta area in Vietnam or along the main rivers in China or the Gangetic plains in India have been able to invest in irrigation because there was a lot of population there. But what we observe is that Africa has a low population and then building infrastructure in Africa is very costly—organizing large scale water irrigation systems become very expensive per capita.

Though there are a few places in Africa where investments have been done. In Mali for example, where there’s the Office du Niger, and in Sudan, with the Gezira Scheme. Mali is working well in part because it has a good agriculture policy and good farmers organizations. And the infrasturcture, in part left by the colonial power, is good.  It’s not well-maintained because there is an invasion of Jacinthe, and they are unable to deal with this. But still the office du Niger is one of the most successful cases, along with Ghana and Senegal. So Mali is exporting crops, quite high-value crops.

ARP : And what country is not successful and why?

ADJ : In comparison, Nigeria is not successful. They have neglected to invest. The petrol there was so appreciating the exchange rate so they had unfavorable prices as a consequence. They have an influx of foreign currency, which means that imports are cheap and exports are not competitive. And as a consequence agriculture is facing cheap import.

By MARTIN RICARD

I recently sat down to talk with Humphrey Wanjugi, 34, a scientist and Kenyan immigrant. He holds a Ph.D. in plant genetics from Montana State University and is currently a post-doc researching wheat genetics with the genomics and gene discovery unit at the United States Department of Agriculture in Albany, Calif. He was also recently hired by Monsanto where he will be working as a trait marker discovery scientist on wheat. He believes genetically modified organisms are good for developing countries, and that they can be used alongside traditional agriculture techniques to improve food security throughout the world.

Scientist Humphrey Wanjugi stands in a greenhouse at the USDA office in Albany, Calif., where wheat is grown for experiments.

Martin Ricard: What was your experience with agriculture?

Humphrey Wanjugi: I grew up in the central highlands of Kenya. So I’ve always had this interest in doing something very constructive, especially when it came to biology. Something that can be used back in African countries and developing countries. I really like it because we have the facilities in the states. And I feel all this information gets to go back especially to developing countries where they don’t have the facilities, they don’t have well-equipped labs, they don’t have the money to do research. So I feel really proud to be doing what I’m doing.

MR: How does farming work in Kenya?

HW: Farming in Kenya is mostly subsistence, basically small-scale owned where people have like one to two acres of land. They do intercropping.

MR: What’s that?

HW: Intercropping is where they just throw everything in there. It’s where you have a farm with beans, corn, potatoes, everything mixed up. But they always do rotation, you know, where they alternate the crops.

The large-scale is not as much, and this is one of the hindrances whereby farming is so much subsistence compared to large-scale, which is very common in the U.S., Argentina, Brazil and others. So you really can’t compare the yield of the subsistence farmer and the large-scale farmer.

MR: Do you know of any successes in terms of agriculture in Kenya? I think I’ve read about cut flowers, that that industry is supposed to be booming?

HW: Yeah, that’s one of the success stories in Kenya, and I’ll take you back and tell you. These farms which are planted in flowers rights now, some of them used to be coffee plantations. When the coffee market dropped in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in Kenya, mostly due to poor governance, most of those farmers went back and replaced those farms with cut flowers.

MR: Why did they choose cut flowers?

HW: Basically it’s a high premium. And most of these people are, you know, huge investors. They have the money, so they can afford these big investments, and it’s easier to market the flowers because Nairobi is an international hub. So it’s easier to market the fresh flowers to Europe or to Asia very easily and still make lots of money out of it.

MR: How did that happen? Like you said, they were coffee farmers before and they saw an opportunity to sell cut flowers. How did they know it would be such a booming sector?

HW: I think they took the examples of other countries like Israel, maybe other countries in the Middle East, and utilized what they’ve done before and then transferred all that technology. So most of these people you see invested in all these farms, most of them are actually not locals. You still have locals, but most of the farms are not owned by local people. So they already know where they are going to market, but it’s good because it creates lots of jobs.

MR: What interests you about wheat genetics, and what’s your vision for what you’re studying?

HW: Wheat is a staple food for 35 percent of the human population. Also, it’s a major source of protein. And, also, it’s one of the most versatile food ingredients. So there’s no way you can do without wheat because it’s a staple food to many communities, especially when you look at China and the Middle East and also looking in the States, whereby most people consume lots of wheat products as opposed to corn which is consumed a lot in African countries.

So wheat production still needs to increase. And for wheat production to increase, a lot of research still has to be done. Wheat is not as much a high premium crop as corn and soybean. These tend to fetch more money. But wheat is a staple food to so many communities. So we’re looking to develop methods or avenues or platforms where we can increase wheat production, especially using genomics and biotechnology. But most people don’t want to hear about genetically modified wheat, for some reason. I have no idea why. People accept genetically modified corn, genetically modified soybean, but when they hear about genetically modified wheat they resist. This is because …I would say most people would say it’s like a holy crop. So I feel there are other avenues that can be used, especially exploiting existing variations in wheat through breeding to increase yield, improve quality and all that kind of stuff.

MR: Why is that? Are they scared of the adverse effects or something else?

HW: The reason is because the U.S. is the main wheat exporter in whole world. So it doesn’t want to be the first country to say, “OK, now we’re exporting genetically modified wheat.” And every time people hear about GMO, they think about, “Oh, it’s this strange monster.” That if I eat this wheat I’ll have seven fingers or things growing out of my head. So there’s that kind of resistance, especially coming from consumers.

Who are the consumers? Most are in developing countries. Lots of Asian countries buy U.S. wheat, the same in most African countries. Go to a rural woman in Africa and ask her, “I have this genetically modified wheat and I have this natural wheat, which one do you want?” and she’s really, really hungry. She is going to say, “No, this is strange. It has some foreign genes that are going to make us infertile or make us die.” You know what I mean? There’s that kind of lack of information on what it really means to be genetically modified. The resistance is not in the United States. It’s in the consumer. The U.S. actually does not want to be the first country to introduce it because most of the consumers are mostly in developing countries.

MR: You bring up a good point about the fears. When you hear GMO or something’s genetically modified, it sounds weird, it just does, right? So what’s the difference for a country in sub-Saharan Africa, for them to have regular wheat versus genetically modified wheat?

HW: Well, there’s no difference. They should embrace biotechnology, especially when it comes to GMOs. What actually needs to happen first is the dissemination of information to people. Because most of the farmers, they are subsistence, they don’t have as much of the information. They’re just growing it for subsistence use, not to market or export it. So they need to be educated about what are the advantages of having genetically modified food.

Let me give you an example. Right now, there’s a big drought in Kenya. People are starving to death. So suppose some brilliant research has come and introduced genetically modified wheat or corn or potatoes or something with a gene that makes crops drought-resistant. There will not be as much hunger as you have now. So I think what needs to happen first is the dissemination of information, why we need this technology and how this technology will help us. So that will eliminate the fears that are there.

MR: So say you figure out how to develop this great drought-resistant wheat crop and they say, “Humphrey, we’re going to disseminate that in different developing countries in Africa.” So knowing what you just said, though, how do you make that breakthrough?

HW: Exactly, this is one of the problems we have in developing countries, especially when you bring in aid to Africa. So what they do is come in with all this money and give it to the government. That money will never trickle down all the way to the common man, no way. And, actually, it also happens to nongovernmental organizations. They tend to work all there but don’t go to the grassroots, the rural people who have the real problem. So, personally, if maybe you give me ten million dollars and I do some research and develop this really drought-resistant wheat, what I’ll do is I would not work with any government official. Well, I’ll work with them, but I won’t make them mange the resources or money. And I’ll go all the way to the people who need it and try to empower the farmers, especially with better seeds, fertilizer and whatever technology they need to make this project be a success.

MR: I had one more question about GMOs. It seems like the research is kind of all over the map. But what have you found? Do they really increase yields? Are they harmful to non-GMO species? Kill the rumors, if you can.

HW: GMO research on yield increase is underway. There’s no GMO wheat that has been released to the market yet. However, I know GMO maize with increased yield potential is in the final stages of trial with biotech companies. The only harm comes if there is an incidence of gene flow to related species or to other fields, which are non-transgenic. Pollen can also cross to other germplasms introducing the transgene that is “not good.” In wheat, which is self-pollinated, evidence of outcrossing has been observed in the wild goat grass which is an obnoxious weed in wheat growing regions like the Palouse (a major wheat-producing agricultural region in the northwestern United States, encompassing parts of eastern Washington, northern Idaho and northeast Oregon). This is one of the concerns that needs to be addressed when Roundup is used. The purpose of Roundup Ready wheat is to control weeds. But if the transgene flows to grassy relatives like jointed goat grass, then it would be hard to control this weed, too. It would be Roundup-resistant.

By STEFANO VALENTINO

The motto “Eat Locally Grown Food” echoed by the California-based foodie movement could help solve the food crisis in Africa. One of those who advocates this theory is Michael Pollan, celebrated best-selling food writer and professor at the School of Journalism in Berkeley. What do organic fans in the Bay Area have to do with people starving miles away across the ocean? To understand this bizarre relationship, let’s talk about rice. The Department of Agriculture forecasts rice production in California will reach the record peak of 2.3 million tons by the end of the year (8 percent more than in 2008). Only Arkansas will do better. Multiply that figure by 100 and you will have the number of Africans in the sub-Sahara region that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) still considers chronically hungry: roughly 230 million!

Philanthropists may think that shipping overseas the abundant Californian rice, the most subsidized in 2007 (see the Farm Subsidy Database), could save those souls from starvation. That’s a good example of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Why? The funny answer would be that Californian short-grain rice does not fit sub-Saharan long-grain diet. The serious one is that subsidized food aid, far from being a remedy, actually contributes to the global food crisis. Heavily supported by public money, U.S. rice (together with corn) has been over-produced and largely exported to Africa below market price over the last decade — a great deal for poor people who could rely on foreign cheap food instead of having to produce their own. But such a deal didn’t last long. In 2008 world prices skyrocketed and so did the number of empty stomachs. That brings us straight to the point: Unlike what the consumerist propaganda says, the current food crisis is not a matter of lack of food. It is a matter of subsidized food.

Pollan explains how U.S. subsidies have become the worst enemy of African food security. “The Farm Bill, passed in 2007, allows our farmers to sell on the world market below the world price, thus making it harder for African farmers to compete in the production of essential crops for their livelihood, such as soy, cotton, corn”, the author of The Onnivore’s Dilemma argues. “This indirectly applies also to the corn-fed chicken that the U.S. sells to Africa for a cheap price.” Poor countries have asked in vain the international institutions to outlaw these subsidies which are illegal under WTO rules. “Most of the Americans mistakenly think that the cheaper the food is, the better it is because it helps feed the world. They don’t understand that dumping commodities on world markets is not the right way and that their taxes are, indeed, making the poor even more hungry: Producing a lot of food is useless when people do not have money to buy it”, Pollan says.

The big lesson drawn from the rise of food prices which has been striking the world since last year is that relying on imports is dangerous and that each country should produce its own food. What’s happened exactly? According to the journalism professor at Berkeley, “When world prices were low, African farmers could not produce enough food to meet their domestic demand because the World Bank-led reforms had deprived them of the subsidies they used to receive from their governments while the U.S. was still subsidizing its own farmers. So when prices went up and people could no longer afford imported grains, the local production was insufficient to feed them all.” Pollan calls for policies that help smallholder farmers grow for local markets, thus enabling developing countries to have some control over their food destiny, even if that means protecting their markets and supporting their farmers — something the U.S. is very good at. “Westerners like to pretend they are independent, self-made, autonomous, but usually you find a government helping hand behind much of their success”, Pollan points out. “It’s important to understand that some farmers in California do receive subsidies — rice and cotton growers in particular — and most of them benefit from other forms of federal help, such as cheap water, interstate highways, etc. Californian farmers shouldn’t flatter their independence too much.”

The foodie movement, of which Pollan is the unrivalled guru, doesn’t ask for the suppression of subsidies but for their conversion into new forms of incentives encouraging farmers to preserve the land, reduce pollution and invest in food quality rather than food quantity. “I’m not against supporting farmers. To the contrary, eliminating farm support and subsidies is not the answer”, the Berkeley-based organic food paladin concludes. “What we need to do is create incentives through those programs so that farmers produce the kind of food we need. The challenge is to align our farm policies with our health, environmental and global food access goals.”