The RuDe group, supported by the Social Science Faculty of Lund University, recently delivered its application for funding for its research programme Afripaths from Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Appendices to the application can be found here. The application itself is not yet official.
Afrint researches at Lund University together with researchers from three departments - Economic History, Social and Economic Geography, and Sociology - have recently established a new working group called the Rural Development Group (RuDe), with the goal of addressing possibilities for sustained poverty reduction by studying the role of agricultural transformation in economic development.
For more information please go to the RuDe webpage www.ekh.lu.se/rude.
We regret to make the announcement that Dr. Gasper Ashimogo, a member of our Afrint research team, has tragically passed away in a car accident in Tanzania on October 28th, 2008. We grieve this fine man with his contagiouis sense of warm humour. At this time our thoughts are with his family and loved ones and the irreparable loss they have suffered in his passing.
After some intense periods of data collection from some 3000 households in over 100 villages, an impressive amount of information has been gathered during the past year for Afrint II. Researchers and enumerators have gone to great lengths to collect data from government officials, village-level authorities and the African small-scale farmer and his/her family. Now, the goal of Afrint II is to analyse this wealth of information, look for trends when comparing data from the previous Afrint study of 2002, and hopefully get a better understanding of the drivers and constraints of agricultural development and poverty reduction in these regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Millenium Development Goals and the African Food Crisis: the cases of Senegal, Guinea and Mali
This study is a first step towards the extension of the Afrint project to several West African countries. In this initial stage three countries will be approached through the macro-level guidelines of Afrint namely: the role of the state in agricultural development, the development of agricultural terms of trade, the organization of the market, the rural infrastructure and staple crop production, the relations between large and small farmer, and the agricultural extension.
Yahia M.Mahmoud
Field work is progressing in the Afrint II partner countries. Recently John Kadzandira and the Malawi team delivered their data for scrutiny by the project management. Yesterday moreover we got the fantastic news from Joseph Karugia that the Kenyan team has completed much of its field work, despite the disturbances which have plagued the country since the election. We hope that the success of Joseph Karugia and his colleagues is a pointer to the future of the country as a whole!
Göran Djurfeldt
Many readers are familiar with the Afrint project and some of its publications, like African food crisis: Lesson from the Asian Green Revolution edited by G. Djurfeldt, H. Holmén et al. (link). They will be interested to note that Afrint II is now launched. This is a follow-up of the study of agricultural development and food security in nine African countries with field data collected in 2002. We will now establish a panel and will be able to gauge current developments in more than 100 villages in these countries and to more precisely address its drivers.
Afrint II is financed by the Swedish Research Council, Sida-Sarec and Sida-Natural Resources Division. It involves the following institutions:
- Addis Ababa University, Ethiopian Economic Association;
- University of Ghana, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER);
- University of Nairobi, Department of Agricultural Economics;
- University of Malawi, Zomba, Centre for Social Research;
- University of Zambia, Institute for Economic and Social Research;
- EconPolicy Research Group, Ltd., Maputo;
- Nigerian Institute of Social land Economic Research (NISER);
- Sokoine Agricultural University, Morogoro;
- Makerere University, Department of Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness;
- Lund University, Department of Sociology;
- Linköping University, Institution for Thematic research, Department of Geography;
- Lund University, Department of Social and Economic Geography.
In addition to the book mentioned above, information about the Afrint project and its analysis of the African food crisis can be found here: link
Recently has been circulated a paper with the purpose to denounce the Green Revolution as an impossible and harmful ‘remedy’ to Africa’s hunger problems (see note 1). The paper has been distributed to a wide range of development organizations, donors, and others with a concern about African poverty and food insecurity. The immediate objective is to stop – or at least discredit – the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations’ recently announced initiative to launch a green revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The problem is not that critique and different proposals are circulated. To the contrary, exchange of ideas is essential when optimal solutions are sought for. But Holt-Giminez et al’s messages are flawed and founded on dubious underpinnings. Commenting on the Rocke¬feller-Gates initiative they write (2006:1): “this new philanthropic effort ignores, misinterprets, and misrespects the harsh lessons of the first green revolution’s multiple failures”.
Having read the paper, I take this opportunity to make a few comments because a closer look reveals that the authors are themselves careless with data and sources and deliberately ignore, misrepresent and misrespect the research that they falsely claim corroborate their conclusions. Only a few examples will be provided here. For those interested, more elaborated discussions can easily be found (2).
Technology Package?
The authors state that the green revolution is merely a narrow technology package based on modern seed varieties, fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation. This is a deliberate misinterpretation. Technology was important but the Asian green revolution of the 1960-70s comprised much more than technology: massive support systems including credit, subsidies, price policies, extension services, and infrastructure investments, etc. This the authors know, but in their agitation they choose to ignore it.
Socially Disastrous?
The ‘expensive green revolution packages’ “favoured a minority of economically privileged farmers … and led to the concentration of land and resources”. The authors base this conclusion on references from 1973 and 1976. At that time, may concerned researchers assumed that that would be the result. Later research has, however, revealed that these fears did not materialize. Actually, the Asian green revolution was smallholder-based and often benefited small family farms more than it did the larger landowners. Even an early critic of the green revolution like Keith Griffin has realized that it can be an effective pro-poor instrument (3). This has been widely documented but Holt-Gimenez et al prefer to recirculate outdated “information”.
In all fairness it should be admitted that they do present a more recent reference (Freebairn 1995) and claim that this study “reviewing every research report published on the Green Revolution over a thirty-year period all over the world – more than 300 in all – showed that 80 percent of those with conclusions on equity found that inequality increased”. While not entirely incorrect, this is a dubious way of using references. Half-truths are the worst lies. Freebairn wasn’t at all happy with the methodologies used (4). Evidently, many of these ‘researchers’ saw what they wanted to see and so, evidently, do Gimenez et al. Especially, Freebairn found (p1) that “studies done by Western developed-country authors, those employing an essay approach and those looking at multi-country regions [i.e. outsiders with a generalizing, sometimes sweeping and far-away perspective] are the most likely to conclude that income inequalities increased. By contrast, work done by Asian-origin authors, … using the case-study method [i.e. those basing their statements on close contact and first-hand knowledge] are more inclined to conclude that increasing inequality is not associated with the new technology”. So much for that ‘evidence’.
Cause of drought?
The green revolution is further deemed disastrous because “in India, green revolution packages required heavy irrigation … Over the last decades, tube-wells have pumped many water tables dry, forcing vast areas to return to traditional, dry-land farming or give up farming altogether”.
Should that really be blamed on the green revolution?
In the 1960s, when the Indian green revolution took off, the population was some 450 million people. Today it is a billion! Total water demand has increased tremendously due to population increase (and to development in other, non-agricultural sectors of the Indian economy). Of course, without a green revolution, this population increase would not have been possible. But it is cynical to wish away 500 million people!
In a similarly cynical vein, the authors underline that in China (which allegedly has prospered without a green revolution) the number of hungry has decreased by about 200 million. This, they say, “begs the question: which was more effective at reducing hunger, the green revolution or the Chinese Revolution?”. The Chinese revolution, especially the ‘great leap forward’, was accomplished at the cost of tens of millions of lives – from starvation in many cases. Since then, China has had its own green revolution based on indigenous agronomical research and technology development. That is the real explanation behind reduced numbers of hungry Chinese. This, the authors cannot be unaware of but they prefer not to mention it.
The Green revolution – a Killer?
This concerns the so-called “green revolution suicides”. According to the authors, “between 1993 and 2003, over 100 000 bankrupt Indian farmers committed suicide. Since then India has averaged 16 000 farmer suicides a year – usually by drinking Green Revolution pesticides”. … It is not that these farmers missed out on the Green Revolution. On the contrary, their destitution and desperation are the result of the Green Revolution” (original emphasis). The authors just claim that this is the reason but they deliver no proof.
There are, however, other explanations. Srijit Mishra (5) reports about these suicides “the rain dependent cotton growing farmers … are faced with declining profitability because of dumping in the global market by the US, [and WTO-imposed] low import tariffs” (p1538) and further that the state has been forced (SAP) to withdraw from providing extension services and credit. In recent years, “current operational loans are likely to be from moneylenders … [and] a conventional form of collateral is land” (p 1540). Indebted farmers risk losing their land. Moreover, and worth observing here, it has also been found that “in a relative sense the SMR [suicide mortality rate] … is also high across other subgroups of population which are not self-employed in farming” (p 1539).
As pointed out by Suri (6): “the degradation of the living conditions of the rural classes has less to do with agriculture itself, but more in the nature of economic and industrial development in the country” (p 1525). Hence, the causes for suicides are externally imposed declining public engagement in the rural economy rather than the green revolution as such (as mentioned above, the green revolution was based on public support systems). So why blame the green revolution?
Final statement
The authors end their paper with declaring: “Truly reducing hunger requires policy changes that are far more important than technology fixes” and that “The Rockefeller and Gates Foundations … have yet to let peasant farmer organizations give their views on the kind of agricultural development they believe will most benefit them”.
With that we fully agree. As already pointed out, the green revolution was/is much more than a simple technology fix. Where it has been successful, it has also been smallholder based. But that is not to say that technology was rejected, to the contrary. To a large extent, the failure (so far) of a green revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to the fact that African agricultural policies have largely neglected the smallholders. By involving – in a real sense – peasants and their organizations, an African green revolution could at last be based on peasants’ needs, priorities and participation, and simultaneously be adapted to local agro-ecological conditions – recent technology developments allow that.
That would benefit the millions of hungry African peasants much more than the spreading of desinformation and ill-founded “analyses” about a (misinterpreted) green revolution per se.
Hans Holmén, Associate professor in Social and Economic Geography, the Tema Institute, Linköping University, Sweden.
Notes:
Holt-Gimenez E, Altieri M A, and P Rosset (2006): Ten reasons why the Rockefeller and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations’ Alliance for Another Green Revolution Will Not Solve the Problems of Poverty and Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa. Food First Policy Brief No. 12.
See, for example, Djurfeldt G, Holmén H, Jirström M, and R Larsson (2005): The African Food Crisis – Lessons from the Asian Green Revolution. CABI Publishing, Wallingford UK and Cambridge MA. Holmén H (2006): ‘Myths about Agriculture, Obstacles to Solving the African Food Crisis’, The European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 18, No. 3, September, pp453-480.
Griffin K (1993): Alternative Strategies for Economic Development. OECD/St. Martin’s Press, London.
Freebairn D K (1995): ‘Did the Green Revolution Concentrate Incomes? A Quantitative Study of Research Reports.’ World Development, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp265-279.
Mishra S (2006): ‘Farmers’ Suicides in Maharashtra.’ Economic and Political Weekly, April 22, 2006.
Suri K C (2006): ‘Political Economy of Agrarian Distress.’ Economic and Political Weekly, April 22, 2006.
Sub-Saharan Africa has urgent need to improve its food security and to increase productivity in food-crop agriculture. How this is to be achieved is a matter of intense controversy. Few issues are the subject of so many misconceptions, alarmist reports and myths as those concerning global food production. Fact-based discussion of agriculture’s role in poverty reduction and for improved food security in Africa has in recent years tended to be replaced by ideas and perceptions which, although expressing strong engagement and an admirable concern, are often misleading and sometimes incorrect, particularly when it comes to evaluating the progressive innovations within agriculture which have been implemented during the last 40 years, notably in Asia. This is very much the case when it comes to the possibility of a similar development in Africa south of the Sahara. In a paper just published, Afrint team member Hans Holmén discusses some of those myths which in recent years have confused the discussion about basic problems and the prerequisites for development, poverty reduction and food security in sub-Saharan Africa.
The article appears to be in the public domain and can be accessed at: http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1080/09578810600893502
On the request of Sida (the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), after the original 8-country study had been completed, the Afrint-project was extended to include also Mozambique. Following the original design, in 2005, two studies – one micro- and one macro-level – were commissioned to EconPolicy Research Group in Maputo and carried out by Professor Paolo Mole and Dr. Peter Coughlin respectively.
The micro-level study is based on a survey comprising 398 smallholder-peasants in different agro-ecological zones and focussing on their livelihood strategies, crops grown, yields, alternative income sources, and access to inputs and extension as well as marketing options and trends over time.
The macro-level study penetrates the environment in which smallholders struggle to make a living – and changes in this environment since independence. Central to this study is if and how national food production and food security is conditioned by changes in the political, economic and institutional environment. This study thus highlights government’s policies in and around agriculture, focussing inter alia on infrastructure, markets, development of financial and other services, technology and extension with special attention to trends before and after implementation of Structural Adjustment Programmes.
Both studies are available via the Publications link on the left side of this page
Hans Holmén