In Cote d’Ivoire, women have for years organized in cooperatives to produce and sell the Attieke, the West African country’s national dish.

Now, Attieke, a couscous, plays an important role for food security as the country struggles to get out of a decade of political turmoil.

Attiekedrom: The making of a National Dish from bagassy2000 on Vimeo.

This story originally aired on Living on Earth, a weekly environmental news and information program distributed by Public Radio International.

Weaving Dreams: Tracing Cotton and Fashion in Africa from Amanda Martinez on Vimeo.

Photo Coutresy of the Center for Investigative Reporting

Mark Schapiro is a Senior Correspondent for the Center for Investigative Reporting with a focus on environmental and international affairs.  He has authored several articles about the international carbon market, and a book titled Exposed (Chelsea Green) that was published in 2007.  He has also published various stories with Frontline/World’s Carbon Watch series, which was recently nominated for a Webby award.  His recent article in Harper’s magazine titled “Conning the Climate” takes the reader “inside the carbon-trading shell game.”Mark Schapiro has also written for The Nation, Mother Jones and The Atlantic Monthly.  He stopped by the Africa Reporting Project to talk carbon trading, what it is, and why we should all be paying attention to it right now.

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.

Photo courtesy of American University

Deborah Brautigam, professor in the International Development Program at American University, has been studying relations between China and Africa for decades.  Her research also focuses on foreign aid, industrialization, state-building and development.  She has served as a consultant for the United Nations, the World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and various Sub-Saharan African countries. She has authored dozens of articles on the issues of foreign aid and governance, development and economic policy, as well as a recent book on China-African relations, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa.  Deborah stopped by the Africa Reporting Project where we talked China, Africa and textiles.

Below are excerpts from Madeleine’s photoblog, which she kept while reporting in Dakar.

This land is who’s land?

March 20

Forty-year-old Ibrahima Diallo has been farming in Patte D’Oie for half his life. He concedes, though, that he doesn’t invest in his land as much as he could because of the looming fear that the government will take away his fields, as it did to those of neighboring farmers to construct a freeway. “I cannot tell you when, but I have a strong feeling that sooner or later this area is going to disappear,” Diallo said.

Patte d’oie | March 14

Patte d’oie means crow’s foot in French. It also has a secondary meaning: fork in the road. That’s a fitting name for the neighborhood of the last of the urban farmers of Dakar, cultivating produce on the scarce acres remaining of a green valley that once covered hundreds. Today you can stand on one edge of the farmland in front of a three story home with a garage, and look over plots of strawberries, lettuce, mint and yams, to rush hour traffic on the highway across the way.

Papa Gueye | March 13

Papa Gueye, 60-year old farmer and leader of the local farmers association of Kayar, a region about 40km northeast of Dakar.

Farmland turned housing | March 13

What you see are two unfinished houses and arid land blanketed with litter and limbs of plants long since dead. Just a few years ago, this was a green field of Irish potatoes, groundnuts and vegetables. Papa Gueye’s three acres were among the hundred acres taken by the local mayor in 2000 to sell to housing developers. Fortunately for Papa Gueye he had more land to continue producing, but what’s left is rapidly diminishing. Just this February, local authorities came to the area again to identify what land could be transformed into valuable housing next.

AP: Federal regulators launch probe of big agriculture
The Associated Press recently reported that the first joint workshops on agriculture by regulators at the U.S. Justice and Agriculture Departments was expected to give farmers, lobbyists, executives and academics a strong indication of where the Obama administration stands on consolidation in agriculture. The administration’s biggest concern has been the concentration of power in rural America. According to the story, farmers felt it was the most attention paid in years to their long-standing complaints that big corporations are choking out smaller players while industry officials and farming groups saw the move as a possible step toward legal action.

The New Vision: Fruit farmers to reap from Coca-Cola, Gates project
A new partnership between Coca-Cola, TechnoServe and the Gates Foundation hopes to enable farmers increase their productivity and double their incomes by 2014. The project is aimed at creating market opportunities for local farmers whose fruit will be used in Coca-Cola’s locally-produced fruit juices, a representative from the company told The New Vision, a Ugandan news Web site. Many multinational corporations import fruit juice concentrate into the country because of the perceived lack of local fruit supply, according to the article. But this partnership could create an attractive long-term opportunity for farmers since there is now a compelling market need for domestically produced mango and passion fruit.

Africa is a Country: Playground Politics
Kids have the unique ability to take the most complex ideas and break them down into the most simple terms. Take, for example, this Funny or Die clip posted on one of the blogs we follow, Africa is a Country, in which children bring satire to an interpretation of the reasons behind the food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa.

By FRANCIS KAGOLO

Jatropha plantation in Kimina, Masini, in Uganda

KIMINA, Uganda — The motorbike trip to the remote village of Kimina in Masindi district is distressing; the road is narrow, potholed and dusty. After an hour of a draining ride, we “wake” up to the shock of a large plantation of ebiti (unknown trees), as they are commonly known in this part of western Uganda.

The “trees” are of jatropha, a plant whose non-edible seeds can be harvested to make biodiesel. From a distance, everything looks green. It is a beautiful plantation. The owner, Joseph Kasigwa, a father of four, is proud of it too. It was abject poverty and lack of school fees for his children that pushed him into growing the crop. He now foresees big earnings once harvests start.

Despite the flourishing jatropha, however, Kasigwa will have to spend much of his income on buying food for his family. He has foregone food production for the biodiesel crop. And he is not alone; there are thousands of farmers in Masindi and neighbuoring districts like Hoima and Lira, who have either abandoned or reduced on food crop production in favour of jatropha.

In the past, the crop was used to demarcate people’s plots especially among people in Buganda (central Uganda), with no commercial value. But the global quest for clean energy has changed this. A number of countries across the world now grow the crop to produce power to lessen dependence on fossil fuels. It is widely hoped that the use of biofuel will solve several problems including reduction of greenhouse gas emission, provide a renewable and therefore sustainable energy source and increase income for the rural poor, mostly in developing countries.

According to Andrew Ndawula, the commissioner for renewable energy in the ministry of energy and mineral development, diesel from jatropha seeds is good for powering vehicles. It does not produce toxic gasses when used.

When a plan for large scale production of agrofuels was first unveiled in 2006, hope of overcoming energy deficiencies in Uganda swayed even the most senior Government officials. Since then, there has been a steady move towards massive biodiesel production in the country, with government using incentives like tax holidays to woo foreign investors into the sector. Nexus Biodiel LTD has planted over 400 hectares of jatropha in Isimba, Masindi, which is three hours north of Kampala. There are four other companies yet to start production of biodiesel, virtually from the same crop.

Farmers in Masindi, Hoima and Lira are reportedly enthusiastic about the crop.

Nexus alone boasts of more than 2,000 registered outgrowers in the three districts, according to Edward Mugenyi, the field manager. Only 36 of these have planted over 190 acres of jatropha. Jatropha production also exists in Mukono and Luweero districts of central Uganda among other areas.

Aside from jatropha, other crops being fronted for biodiesel include castor (nsogasoga) and candlenut (Kabakanjagala) seed. African Power Initiatives LTD (API) has planted about 2,000 acres of caster oil and jatropha in Namalu, Karamoja region, officials said last year. The companies promise to start production of diesel soon this year.

Ndawula says the goal is to increase the use of modern renewable energy from the current 4 to 16 percent of the total energy consumed in Ugnada by 2017.  The ministry also says biodiesel is needed to meet the increasing energy demand in the country which it predicts to reach 1,809MWh in 2025. But more importantly, government wants to reduce on fossil fuel imports. It also thinks biodiesels can boost development in rural communities.

The programme has provided the rural population with new alternative cash crops, and thus additional employment. But the move has sparked off vehement criticism. Environmentalists and food rights activists though admit that curbing fuel shortages is crucial for development, warn that the biofuel industry is laced with worse consequences especially on food security.

Geofrey Kamese, the programme officer for energy and climate change at the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), a local NGO, says biofuel production will more likely worsen food shortages, hamper poverty alleviation efforts and eventually deter Uganda’s ability to achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Biofuels take large chunks of land

He says producing biofuel will demand a lot of land at the expense of food production. Indeed, Robert Nabubolo and Godfrey Bukomba, managers of the Nexus jatropha plantation in Masindi, revealed that an acre of land can plant only about 430 trees.

Each tree produces five kilograms of seed a year, which generate just one liter of diesel. This means only 430 liters of fuel can be produced from an acre of land each year. This is just enough for one car, yet Uganda has over 600,000 vehicles, according to statistics from the works ministry. To move just 2,000 of these vehicles, for instance, it means millions of hectares of fertile land must be put under jatropha and not food production.

Mugenyi says it is possible to intercrop jatropha with some crops like ground nuts and beans to fight hunger, but the hurdle is few farmers are ready to buy this advice. Hence, most of the plantations only have jatropha trees. Besides, Mugenyi also admits that intercropping can be done until jatropha is three years. Beyond that, the trees would have acquired branches and thus unfit for intercropping.

Many other biofuel feedstocks like soybeans, corn and sugarcane are also key sources of food for people. “It does not make sense to starve our people because a few rich ones want fuel to drive cars,” Kamese remarks. “Converting food crops into fuel means more and more people will stay hungry and eventually die.”

It is upon this background that activists warn Government to tread carefully. “Biofuels are coming to compete for the small land that was used to grow food crops. In order to produce an extra litre of diesel, we shall have to convert more land from food crops to produce biofuels as more people go hungry,” Kamese warns.

Environment threatened

In the process, therefore, a lot of rain forests have to be cut to create ample land for jatropha plantations, as the case has been in some parts of Masindi near Murchison Falls National Park. This comes with disastrous environmental impacts, especially now that the country and the world at large, already suffer from the brunt of climate change. Last year, for instance, crops failed due to prolonged droughts, leading to famine that killed over 50 people mainly in the East.

Activists also castigate the monoculture system used for growing biofuel crops for involving excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. “It affects soil fertility and destroys biodiversity, causing both environmental degredation and food insecurity,” NAPE said in a recent publication. NAPE, therefore, believes that biofuel production would increase greenhouse gas emissions and intensify rather than mitigate global warming.

This is in line with a 2007 study by African Biodiversity Network (ABN) which indicated that biofuel projects in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Benin could lead to “environmental and humanitarian disaster on the continent.”

Experts also envisage a sharp upsurge in food prices as more farmers take on biofuels. In a press release, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) attributed the 2008 rise in food prices partly to the “competition (for land) between biofuels and food.” The urban poor, who make up 10% of Ugandan’s urban population, will be hit hardest by the high food prices and will have to stay empty stomach for more days, experts say.

WFP country director, Stanlake Samkange, said in an exclusive interview that although jatropha was another cash crop, there was need to balance cash crops with food production. “Biofuels is not a bad move per se. But we want to be assured that food security will be guaranteed,” Samkange noted.

Aside, Kamese thinks that Uganda’s potential to benefit from the biofuels is very limited. “Our fear is that rich countries are the ones driving the biofuel industry by promising to buy most of the produce. We shall producing fuel for foreign markets as our people bear the burden of feeding their families,” he said.

The global perspective

Since 1930, countries have proposed different approaches to the soaring petroleum fuel prices and shortages; but biodiesels have picked up so rapidly that they seem to dominate the global debate on renewable energy today.

Biofuel production based on agricultural commodities increased globally more than threefold from 2000 to 2007. Statistics show that in 2005, for instance, a total of 994 million gallons or 3,762 million liters of biodiesel were produced across the world. Germany alone produced 1,921 million liters that year mainly from rape seed. Currently Brazil is said to be the leading producer of biofuels, mostly from ethanol and crops like soybeans and jatropha. In the US, biodiesel is produced mainly from corn. Other countries include Austria, France, UK, and Italy among others.

But fears of biofuels exacerbating hunger have reportedly forced China to be cautious when it comes to this new source of energy. With 20% of the world’s population to feed, diverting foodcrops to fuel production has reportedly been a deeply controversial issue in China. In 2007, for instance, China’s State Council halted the use of grain crops for ethanol production.

As biofuels promoters promise a source of environment-friendly energy that would also be a boon to the world’s farmers, skeptics argue that biofuel production will threaten food supplies for the poor and fail to achieve the environmental benefits claimed.

In an apparent concern over the negative repercussions biofuels had to food security, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in 2008 asked nations to rethink the move towards widespread biodiesel production.

FAO also came up with a number of guidelines necessary to ensure environmentally, economically and socially sustainable biofuel production. It said national policies must protect the poor and food-insecure; ensure agricultural, rural development, and environmental sustainability. It also called for international system that are supportive of sustainable biofuel development.

Way forward

Besides the caution from WFP representative, who speaks from a hindsight having spent billions of dollars providing food relief to Ugandans hunger-stricken areas like Karamoja, there are specific challenges that need to be addressed in Uganda.

Top on the agenda, Kamese says, is the quick enactment of a national policy governing the biofuel industry. “If a person has 10 acres of land, how much of it must he put to growing jatropha or other fuel crops? A carefully scrutinised policy should guide local communities on such issues,” he says.

The policy, he adds, is also needed to protect people with insecure land tenure systems from being deprived of the opportunity of growing food crops. Plus, there is need to control prices such that even those engaged in biofuel production can afford to buy food.

Samakange says it is important that government looks at the overall balancing of food security with biofuels by encouraging farmers not to abandon food crops completely.

Other environmentalists say it would be prudent to explore several renewable energy sources for curbing the energy crisis other than emphasising biofuels. One route would be by promoting the use of solar and wind energy. Kamese also believes that small holder energy projects would be a better option for local communities than large scale biofuel plantations.

But in order to benefit the poor, and to make viable economic and environmental contributions, experts believe that biofuel technology needs further improvement, and investments and policies facilitating better agricultural innovation and trade be considered. Serious caution is sounded against Uganda turning food crops like maize into fuel.

Francis Kagolo is a staff reporter for Uganda’s national daily newspaper, New Vision.

The fellowships will each total $36,000, including round trip airfare, professional stipends, and rent while in Berkeley.

The selected fellows will join the School’s Visiting International Scholars Program and participate in a new journalism training initiative aimed to provide high quality coverage of agricultural development issues in Africa for dissemination in U.S., African, and international media. The initiative will also offer dedicated funding for both domestic U.S. and Africa travel for research and reporting work.

Requirements:

Selected fellows must bring at least five years experience in journalism in sub-Saharan Africa, in any medium including print newspaper, magazine, television, radio, documentary, or new media format such as blogging, podcasting, and other online publishing.

Applicants also must demonstrate a proven track record of commitment to the truth-seeking craft, and a willingness to effectively investigate the problems of hunger on the continent with an aim to publish or broadcast stories about these topics and bring them to light in compelling form for audiences in Africa and around the world. A B.A. degree, at minimum, is strongly desired, along with experience and knowledge about agricultural issues in the applicant’s native country.

Selected African fellows will enroll with other Visiting Scholars in background courses at Berkeley examining the global food crisis starting in late August 2010, while also contributing their knowledge about Africa and journalism to their U.S. and international peers.

Please submit applications via the online form.

To access the form, use the password:

africa2010

The form provides spaces to include your resume, a one-page cover letter containing a statement of interest, and links to three examples of work.

For questions, contact africa@journalism.berkeley.edu

Deadline for applications: Monday, March 29, 2010

This opportunity is part of a two-year grant provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.