Karl Lyimo
6 July 2009
column
Nairobi — The clarion call in and out of Africa is for the attainment of sustainable food security as a matter of course. This is understandable. However, two things are not.
One, why have countries like Tanzania never overcome the problems of persistent food shortages -- let alone attain food self-sufficiency? Two, why is it still necessary for African leaders to seek extraneous interventions and aid in attaining the same?
I am prompted to write by the flurry of activity in recent days on agriculture as a whole, and food security in particular.
Both have a direct bearing on the reduction of the abject poverty currently afflicting most of Africa.
Both can make or break efforts to uplift people to higher levels of decent living and human dignity.
Meaningful and sustainable food security is inextricably linked with agricultural production whether it is crop farming/horticulture, livestock/poultry keeping, marine farming (fisheries, seaweed), beekeeping or hunting/gathering.
Perhaps the latest, most poignant development in the food sufficiency saga came out of the audience US President Barack Obama granted President Jakaya Kikwete in Washington DC in May.
In that meeting, Kikwete reportedly asked the Obama Administration to invest more in food security and agro-tech in Africa as the surest way to end the continent's perpetual poverty and food shortages.
The two presidents share the view that radical agricultural reform is the best option to fight poverty in Africa and that the US is in the best position to spearhead efforts to that end.
Noting that agricultural development had generally fallen off the agenda of Africa's development partners, Kikwete argued that increased commitment to food production in Africa would help bring 160 million people out of poverty in a short time.
Today, Africa is home to more than 800 million people, and even that modest achievement would be an excellent start.
But, had agriculture fallen off the agenda or was it pushed off? The choice of words here is perhaps intuitive.
We know half of Africa's problems are born of the prevailing lopsided and unjust World Economic Order designed to ensure the already prosperous continue to prosper, while the weak continue to be dependent on, and subservient to, the former.
Hence hefty government farm subsidies and restrictive home market practices in the US, EU and Japan when they strenuously discourage the same in Africa.
But, Africa is also to blame for most of the woes.
Tanzania is richly endowed with natural resources: Vast potential arable land, water bodies (irrigation farming), livestock herds (third-largest in Africa), marine and forestry resources, minerals name them.
In the 1960s, founder president Julius Nyerere identified poverty, disease and ignorance as our greatest enemies -- and land, people, good policies and competent leaderships as essential for national growth.
Nearly half-a-century later, we are sicker, poorer and more ignorant than we were then. Yet, we still have the land, policies, leaderships -- and more people than ever before! Where are we failing so ignominiously?
Unless and until we in Africa pull up our socks -- and learn to heal ourselves -- we are bound to remain the mental and socioeconomic slaves of extraneous influences.
Karl Lyimo is a freelance journalist based in Dar.
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