UN chief and Millennium Excellence award recipient, Kofi Annan says Africa needs a "Green Revolution" to get us out of poverty and into economic prosperity. I agree. But we need more than a green revolution. We need a "Gray revolution" first - a complete overhaul in the way we think otherwise we would only produce more food to feed others.

What is generally called the Green Revolution began in Mexico in 1944 and spread like an epidemic across the world. In India and Pakistan, it is credited with saving over one billion people from starvation. The use of genetic engineering in agriculture to create genetically modified foods is viewed by some as the natural continuation of the Green Revolution. Ghana's "Operation Feed Yourself" programme in the 1970s was our humble attempt at replicating the Green Revolution.

The goal of the Green Revolution, the process of technological development of agricultural techniques, was to increase the efficiency of agricultural processes so that the productivity of the crops was increased, and to help developing countries face the food needs of their growing populations. Mexico went from having to import half its wheat to self-sufficiency by 1956 and, by 1964, to exporting half a million tons of wheat. Norman Borlaug who was instrumental in the scheme of things won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

But the first truly green revolution, inappropriately called the Industrial Revolution, occurred between the mid 18th and mid 19th century. This was a period in which fundamental changes occurred in agriculture, textile and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies and the social structure in England. Agriculture at that time, was at the centre of the English way of life both as source of subsistence of the population and as an indispensable source of raw materials for the textile industry. The common practice in early agriculture to allow the land to lie fallow after it had been exhausted through cultivation, was replaced with the cultivation of clover and other legumes that helped restore soil fertility. The improved yields also increased the amount of food available to sustain livestock through the winter. Other advances in agriculture included the use of sturdier farm implements fashioned from metal, a great improvement on farming implements of the time, most of which were made entirely out of wood. Horse power replaced oxen power. These changes in the methods of production in agriculture made it possible to feed all the people that were attracted to the industrial centers as factory workers. By providing enough food to sustain an adequate work force, England was preparing the way for expansion of the economy and industry.

Ghana's "Operation Feed Yourself" programme in the 1970s for which the late General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong is well known, was perhaps the Ghanaian version of the Green revolution. Mass production of food was the direct result of the establishment of State farms across the country but this success was poorly managed - Cocoa for instance was locked up in the hinterlands, unable to reach centres to be prepared for export. There was no vigorous effort to set up agro-based industries as a necessary follow up. Instead, we continued operating within the same neocolonialist economic paradigm of producing and exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. Soon, 'Kalabule,' or Kutu's version of today's pervasive corruption, dissipated the rest of the gains from Operation Feed Yourself.

Since then, we have groped in the dark with programmes initiated, assuming importance only in name and reduced to a few symposia and workshops with no practical action to change the fundamental structure of the economy. The "Youth in Agriculture" programme is one shameful example of how we excel in crafting programmes and spend the rest of the time just talking about them. The other is the PSI or the Presidential 'Spurious' Initiatives (PSI) which aims at "diversifying agriculture, increasing exports and generating employment" but not necessarily to increase food crop production, much less increase the nutritional intake of Ghanaians.

The Day of Scientific Renaissance of Africa was celebrated on June 30 this year under the theme: "Science and Technology in Ghana's Agriculture and celebration Industrial Growth" was reduced, as it has been since 1988, to a talk shop. The 21st National Farmers Day is being launched today under the theme, "Agricultural Production and Productivity, Key to Growth and Poverty Reduction." But that is all there is to it. Tomorrow, you and I will go hungry with no prospects of breaking the cycle. No one ever solved a problem just by talking. We have to put our shoulder to the wheel or what the French call "Se jetter dans l'entreprise".

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger means increasing agricultural production and food consumption, and improving nutritional content of diets. To accelerate the pace of reducing hunger in Africa, we must make the gray matter in our skulls work for us. An increase in agricultural production will not guarantee reduction in hunger if our mindset is geared towards consuming the refuse of western civilization or is it 'evilization'? Mass produced nutritious local foods could be sold cheaply only to buy rotten meat and 'polished' rice coming from some white man's country that JAK's policies endorse as the way forward.

Ghanaians are not only underfed but also malnourished. We need more quality and nutritious food and not just more of any kind ofjunk food. Without being able to do some of the basic things for the mass of the people, we literally remove the planks on which patriotism is built. And if we cannot even feed ourselves, we have no justification for asking for permanent seats at the UN. We need a "Gray Revolution" - a complete and irreversible change in our reasoning.